With nothing to lose, Unics Kazan finally claimed their first win of the EuroLeague season by beating the previously undefeated Fenerbahce 81-73 in Istanbul.

Keith Langford kept his scoring streak going as he went for 28 points for Unics as they not only claimed a deserved win in Turkey, but also snapped Fenerbahce’s 23-game winning streak at the Ulker Sports Arena. Artsiom Parakhouski had a double-double with 20 points, 12 rebounds and Latavous Williams added 10 points in the win.

“We have been working so hard,” Langford said. “A lot of our games have been really close, and we just did not finish at the end. Feeling is good, I am happy. This is very important for our club. Very important.”

Unics led for the majority of the night, but never by more than seven points during the first three quarters. Fenerbahce stepped it up on defence in the fourth, and Bobby Dixon had a hot hand, helping the hosts to a 71-65 lead. However, Unics responded with an 11-0 to get the valuable victory.

Dixon hit seven triples to lead Fenerbahce with 23 points.

Tyrese Rice was welcomed back to Tel Aviv with open arms in an emotional return as a Barcelona player and he ended up by the villain as his side conquered Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv 79-69.

Rice, who helped Maccabi to the 2014 EuroLeague title led the Catalan side with 21 points including some big plays in the fourth to improve Barca’s record to 3-2, while Maccabi dropped to 2-3.

“It was a very important win on the road,” said Barcelona coach Georgios Bartzokas. “It is very difficult to win over here in front of a very tough environment against a great team that was in great timing before the game after two wins in a row in the EuroLeague.

“We knew before the game that we had a very difficult job to do today, but we were focused, followed our game plan and finally we took one win on the road which is important, as is every EuroLeague win.”

Andrew Goudelock led the way with 19 points for Maccabi.