By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Frutti Extra Bursaspor survived a tough battle against favorites Partizan NIS Belgrade and with a 102-95 victory in overtime they sealed their ticket to the 7DAYS EuroCup quarterfinals.
Partizan recovered from a nine-point deficit in the second half to take the lead of the game, yet the Turkish side was too tough to give up the battle. With the game hanging on a thread and seven seconds to go, John Holland tied the score at 84 points, forcing the extra five-minute period. Bursaspor enjoyed a 19-11 run in OT to escape from Belgrade triumphant.
Holland was the guy with the hot hand, hitting four three-pointers for a total of 17 points, while Andrew Andrews stepped up clutch to lead all scorers with 24 points and 10 assists. Onuralp Bitim followed with 20 points and 10 rebounds, while Derek Needham scored 14 points.
Aleksa Avramovic scored 23 points for Partizan, Matthias Lessort finished the game with 20 points and 8 rebounds and Kevin Punter added 13.
Earlier in the day, Boulogne Metropolitans used a 27-10 run in the third quarter to stun Umana Reyer Venice with an 87-66 win and advance to the quarterfinals. Vince Hunter posted a double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds to lead the efforts of the French team, Keith Hornsby also added 14 points, Will Cummings scored 12, while Miralem Halilovic and Jordan McRae both had 10 points. Jordan Theodore remained sidelined for Reyer, which got 9 points by Andrea De Nicolao, Mike Bramos, and Valerio Mazzola.
Valencia used size to establish its status as favorites with a 98-80 victory against debutants Hamburg Towers. Jasiel Rivero posted 21 points and four rebounds for Joan Penarroya’s squad and Bojan Dubljevic added 15 points and 9 rebounds. On the opposing end, Maik Kotsar had 23 points for Hamburg, Jaylon Brown followed with 15 and Caleb Homesley scored 14.
Virtus Segafredo Bologna also clinched its spot to the next round after managing to contain Lietkabelis Panavezys and grab a 75-67 victory at home. Big man Mam Jaiteh led the way for Virtus with 20 points and Kyle Weems tapped 13 points against feisty Lietkabelis which ends the season fruitless. Nikola Radisevic and Gediminas Orelik each scored 12 points for the Lithuanian side and Panagiotis Kalaitzakis had 8 points and 4 assists.
Gran Canaria faced no struggle against Slask Wroclaw and comfortably moved to the quarterfinals with an 87-60 victory paced behind a 15-point performance by Nicolas Brussino. AJ Slaughter posted 11 points for GranCa and Artem Pustovyi was added to the list of top scorers with 10 points. Kerem Kanter had a game-high 16 points for Slask and Travis Trice added 13 points and six assists.