By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
One day after the rematch of last season’s Euroleague final, it was time for a replay of the 3rd place game in Istanbul. Barcelona playing without Juan Carlos Navarro beat 85-80 Panathinaikos without Diamantidis and Ukic and won its first trophy of the season at the tournament of Sofia in Bulgaria.
It was just a preparation game, so the score doesn’t really matter. What really matters, however, was that it was the first game of Sarunas Jasikevicius against its previous team. Saras had 7 points and 3 assists and Joe Ingles had 18 points. For the Greens Sofoklis Shortsanitis and Derwin Kitchen scored 15 points each.
In Italy, Olympiacos playing without Vasilis Spanoulis defeated Siena 71-67, but the big news from the tournament in Cagliari was the win of Fenerbahce/ Ulker against CSKA Moscow (70-65). The two teams will play also on Sunday at Istanbul in order to honor retiring Mirsad Turkcan. The really bad news for the Russian is the injury in the knee of Victor Khryapa after a collusion with Fener‘s star Bo McCalebb
There were also three great performances this Saturday on personal level. Anadolu Efes beat Galatasaray 73-71 with former NBAers Jordan Farmar and Sasha Vujacic combining for 42 points (17+25). Also, on the day of his birthday Keith Langford (photo) learned that he will have a son – as he wrote on twitter – and also destroyed the Germans of Braunshweig. Milano beat them 105-78 with Langord scoring 28 points with 5/5 three pointers and dishing 9 assists. Only in the movies…