By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Olimpia Milano forward Zach LeDay won MVP of Round 24 of the EuroLeague regular season. The American player scored a career-high-tying 33 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead his injury-plagued team to a big win over reigning champion Panathinaikos Athens.
Thanks to these numbers, LeDay registered 39 in PIR, the most of any player this round, to earn MVP.
Per EuroLeague Basketball:
A wonderful performance for an undermanned EA7 Emporio Armani Milan has seen Zach LeDay secure Round 24 MVP honors with a season-high PIR of 39.
LeDay tied his career high with 33 points – a total he had only managed once before, back in Round 15 of this current season – after making 7-of-10 two-pointers, 5-of-7 three-pointers and 4-of-4 free throws. He also grabbed 8 rebounds, dished 1 assist, drew 6 fouls and had a +18 in the plus/minus column, the second best of any player in this round. This is the third time this season that LeDay has secured the MVP of the Round prize, having done so in Round 7 and Round 15. It is his fourth MVP of the Round award overall, as he first took home this honor in Round 10 of the 2018-19 season.
The Milan forward was not the only player to post a 39 PIR in this round as Virtus Segafredo Bologna’s Toko Shengelia did so as well, yet it came in defeat as his team fell to a 95-81 loss at Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul. That 39 PIR is a career high for Shengelia, who also posted a career-best mark with 35 points on 10-of-14 two-pointers, 2-of-3 three-pointers and 9-of-10 free throws. Shengelia added 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 6 fouls drawn to his tally.
The third-best PIR in Round 24 belonged to Zalgiris Kaunas’s Sylvain Francisco, who had a career-high 36 PIR in his team’s 82-97 defeat against FC Bayern Munich. Francisco posted a personal-best 33 points on 5-of-8 two-pointers, 5-of-8 three-pointers and 8-of-8 free throws, 1 rebound, 5 assists and 7 fouls drawn.
Rounding out the list of Round 24’s top performers are Olympiacos Piraeus’s Sasha Vezenkov, Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz’s Chima Moneke and Bayern’s Nick Weiler-Babb, all with a PIR of 34. Vezenkov amassed 26 points, 9 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block and 7 fouls drawn in Olympiacos’s 92-89 win over Anadolu Efes Istanbul, Moneke recorded 22 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists and 8 fouls drawn in Baskonia’s 88-86 triumph over FC Barcelona, while Weiler-Babb had a near-perfect performance in Bayern’s win at Zalgiris with 14 points, 7 rebounds, 13 assists, 2 steals, 3 fouls drawn and zero turnovers.