By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Tim Abromaitis took home the Basketball Champions League Quarterfinals MVP honors. The 29-year-old American forward helped Iberostar Tenerife eliminate Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem and advance to the Final Four. He was around the last time the Spanish club reached this far in FIBA’s premier competition and went all the way with Tenerife.
“I think it (the competition level) keeps getting better” Abromaitis said of the BCL on this week’s Coast to Coast Podcast on championsleague.basketball. “When the season started and we saw the list of teams, we knew this was going to be a pretty good challenge just to make it to the Final Four, even just to do well in our group. We finished first, but with our group having Nanterre, Venice, (UNET) Holon, Bonn, those are all really good teams. Every week we had another challenge. It’s been good for us, like we’ve played really well but it’s definitely been challenging and seems like the competition keeps getting better and better” he added.
Abromaitis scored 16 points in the first game against Hapoel and poured 21 more in the rematch, also tallied nine rebounds and sank four three-pointers in the second leg. Tenerife won 81-64 and 154-139 on aggregate.
“Another thing was that Javier Beiran, who has been one of our leaders, didn’t play in the first game and was limited in the second game, so people had to step up and it just so happened I got some more touches and was lucky enough to knock some shots down” he mentioned.
On the Israeli club: “Hapoel is obviously a great offensive team with a lot of talent at every position. We threw a lot of defenses at them but mainly, we just played really aggressively with a lot of energy and focus. Maybe we got lucky they were missing some shots but I think we were forcing them into tough ones and really did a good job of scouting them and knowing their strengths and being able to slow them down a little like other teams haven’t been able to do.”
Tenerife is on its third Champions League playoffs campaign and the experience is good for the team, the Quarterfinals MVP pointed out: “I think it definitely helps, When we won it two years ago, we didn’t win either of the first games, in the Round of 16 or in the Quarter-Finals. Last year, we won the first game (against UCAM Murcia) and lost the second to get bounced out of the Round of 16.
“So I think we all knew that no matter what happened in the first leg, everything is still in the air, it was up for grabs in the second leg. We were down to Promitheas, losing by nine (45-46) at half-time at Jerusalem, but no one was nervous. We knew to look at it like it was an 80-minute game, that we had 60 minutes still to go and that helped us to come back.”
On the Final Four, he said: “It’s nice, Not an easy road to get here but from the start, the goal of the team was to get back to the Final Four. We were obviously really disappointed last year when we didn’t make it and were knocked out in the Round of 16 but it feels great to be back in the Final Four and to be able to compete for another title, hopefully.”
Photo Credit: Basketball Champions League