By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
The final month of Regular Season action in the 2020-21 Basketball Champions League left us with some remarkable individual performances, as teams were jostling for position in the race towards the Play-Offs.
Among the several serious candidates to make Team of the Month for January, in the end Bakken Bears point guard Q.J. Peterson, AEK shooting guard Keith Langford, SIG Strasbourg small forward Bonzie Colson, Pinar Karsiyaka power forward Raymar Morgan and Tofas Bursa center Tomislav Zubcic were the five players who got the nod, as announced by BCL.
One of the above players will be the MVP of the month, and his name will be announced on Monday. Here’s a closer look at the performances of the five members of Team of the Month for January 2021 in the BCL:
Q.J. PETERSON (January efficiency rating: 30)
The 2020-21 BCL campaign of the Bakken Bears will not extend past the Regular Season but, during a short window in January, the Danish champions had very realistic hopes of reaching the Play-Offs for the first time in club history and Q.J. Peterson was a huge part of that great run.
The Bakken point guard dazzled fans around Europe with his two performances this month, his 35-point display in the win against Galatasaray on January 5 and his 18-point, 8-assist showing in the victory over powerhouse Iberostar Tenerife two weeks later.
Peterson and the Bears will not be in the Play-Offs but, in what was a milestone European campaign in both the career of the 26-year-old American guard and in the history of the club, they proved to everyone that they will be a forced to be reckoned with the next time around.
KEITH LANGFORD (January efficiency rating: 23)
We always knew that there is no defense that can limit Keith Langford‘s scoring exploits, but this month we learned that not even father time can stop this natural-born-scorer from doing what he knows best.
The 37-year-old shooting guard poured in a season-high 32 points on 5 of 6 three-point shooting in AEK’s most crucial game so far this season, at Tsmoki Minsk on January 20, earning the Greek side a 95-90 road win and a trip to the Play-Offs.
Best of all, Langford came up with that huge display despite being a game-time decision as he suffered from stomach pains up prior to the clash in Minsk. He concluded the Regular Season as the league’s leading scorer, averaging 21.5 points per game, and as we all know the best is yet to come from Langford when we enter the business end of the season.
BONZIE COLSON (January efficiency rating: 27)
SIG Strasbourg had a disastrous 2019-20 BCL campaign but they underwent many changes to come back this season stronger than ever, and the arrival of Bonzie Colson was arguably the key component in this transformation.
The 25-year-old small forward, who is currently the league’s third-leading scorer averaging 20.2 points per game (27 points per through January!), lifted Strasbourg to a 101-94 double- overtime win over VEF Riga on January 13 with a memorable display, as he nailed a dagger triple to tie the scores at the end of regulation and finished with a BCL season-high 31 points and 8 rebounds.
That win punched Strasbourg’s ticket to the Play-Offs and Colson signed off the Regular Season with another big performance, collecting 23 points and 6 rebounds against Rytas Vilnius on January 26, albeit the French team were not victorious on that occasion.