By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Joventut Badalona hit 16 3-pointers and defeated Partizan Belgrade 92 – 84 after coming back from 15 points overall in the big Group A clash that concluded Round 12 of the EuroCup regular season.
Badalona became the first team to advance to the next round and got a major advantage over Partizan for the first place in the Group by also grabbing the tiebreaker since the Belgrade match had ended 68 – 67.
Derek Willis (19 points, seven rebounds) and Brandon Paul (13 points) led the 3-point assault for Badalona with four apiece. Pau Ribas added 15 points with three triples and Guillem Vives had 13 points with three 3-pointers of his own.
Matthias Lessort notched 20 points and eight rebounds while Kevin Punter scored 19 for a Partizan squad that was nowhere near as “hot” as the hosts in its 3-point efforts, finishing with 4-15. The Serbian side led 16 – 31 in the second period only for Badalona to erase that margin and as the first half closed 41 – 42. Zeljko Obradovic‘s players went up 44 – 49 early after the break but were then overwhelmed by a streak of threes and a 14 – 3 run. They trailed for the rest of the match in a kinda unpleasant return for Obradovic to his 1993-1994 whereabouts.
Jaylon Brown’s 32 points in the Hamburg Towers’ 85 – 78 road win over Andorra was one of the standout performances in the rest of Wednesday’s (2/2) EuroCup games. He shot 7-15 on 3-pointers while dishing out six assists in a result that keeps his team strong in the qualification game.
In France, Boulogne Metropolitans pulled off a major upset by defeating Lokomotiv Kuban 95 – 92. Former Loko player Will Cummings flirted with the triple-double (20 points, nine rebounds, nine assists) to inflict most of the damage to the visiting team.
Yogi Ferrell had 19 points and Jacob Pullen added 17 points as Cedevita Olimpija downed Bursaspor 103 – 86 to return to wins after two straight losses. Promitheas also got a valuable victory by taking down Bourg 84 – 77. Kendrick Ray (18 points) and Dario Hunt (18 points, six rebounds) led the winning team in scoring while Dimitris Agravanis had 17 points plus eight rebounds.
EuroCup Standings:
Group A:
Badalona 10 – 2
Partizan 8 – 4
Lokomotiv Kuban 8 – 4
Andorra 6 – 5
Lietkabelis 6 – 6
Turk Telekom 6 – 6
Hamburg Towers 5 – 7
Slask Wroclaw 2 – 9
Trento 1 – 11
Group B:
Gran Canaria 9 – 2
Valencia 8 – 4
Buducnost 8 – 4
Virtus Bologna 6 – 5
Ratiopharm Ulm 6 – 6
Reyer Venezia 5 – 5
Cedevita Olimpija 4 – 7
Bourg 4 – 8
Bursaspor 3 – 7
Promitheas Patras 3 – 8