Home Other Lietuvos Rytas Vilnius and Fuenlabrada advance to conclude regular season, EuroCup hangover

Lietuvos Rytas Vilnius and Fuenlabrada advance to conclude regular season, EuroCup hangover

Round 10 of the regular season brought some drama as three teams battled for two tickets to the Top 16 from Group B. In the end, Lietuvos Rytas Vilnius and Montakit Fuenlabrada advanced, while Zenit St. Petersburg clinched first place in Group C and Cedevita Zagreb and Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem both won to wrap up second place in Groups A and D, respectively.

Group A

Cedevita held off Nizhny Novgorod 82-84, registering its sixth consecutive win to finish Group A in second place with a 6-2 record. Cedevita never trailed on the night, and led by as many as 17 points several times in the second half, but Kenny Boynton nailed 5 threes in the last eight minutes of the game and helped tie the game at 82-82. But Cedevita found a way to prevail as Marko Tomas finished with 20 points and Miro Bilan had 19. Boynton shot 7 of 11 from three-point land and scored 31 points along with 6 assists and 6 rebounds for Nizhny. Herbalife Gran downed MZT Skopje Aerodrom 87-75 at home to finish Group A with a 7-1 record. MZT lost for the eighth time in as many games and bowed out of the competition. Royce O’Neale led the winners with 23 points on 8-of-9 two-point shooting.

Group B

Montakit Fuenlabrada defeated Lietuvos Rytas Vilnius 81-70 to clinch a spot in the Top 16 on Wednesday. Rytas learned it went through an hour before the tip-off when first-place Khimki Moscow Region defeated RETAbet Bilbao Basket 99-78. The outcomes of the games had Fuenlabrada finish second with 4-4 record, the same as the idle ALBA Berlin in third place, but Fuenlabrada held the tiebreaker. Rytas finished in fourth place with a 3-5 record, which is the same as eliminated RETAbet, also via tiebreaker. Fuenlabrada dominated from start to finish against Rytas, jumping to an early lead, and never allowing the visitors to come closer than 4 the entire night. Pako Cruz had 15 points in the winning effort. Corey Fisher had 16 points and 6 assists for Rytas. Khimki finished the regular season in style by downing RETAbet for a 6-2 record. Alexey Shved led the winners with 18 points. Khimki ended up hitting 11-of-21 three-point shots (52.4%) and dominating the boards, 35-20. Ivan Buva led RETAbet with 18 points.

Group C

Zenit St. Petersburg clinched first place in Group C by beating Unicaja Malaga 82-72 at Yubileyni Arena behind a masterful performance by Janis Timma. The forward shined with a career-high 33 points plus 10 rebounds to lead Zenit, which concluded the regular season with a 6-2 record. Unicaja placed third at 4-4. Unicaja led by 10 midway through the third quarter before the hosts stormed back with an 11-0 run. Unicaja also held a slim lead in the fourth quarter, but Timma and co. proved to be too much to handle. Jamar Smith paced Unicaja with 19 points. That result left FC Bayern Munich in second place, but the German side gave a top effort in beating Buducnost VOLI Podgorica 80-66. Bayern finished second with a 6-2 record, while Buducnost goes home at 0-8. The visitors battled from 16 down to get within 3 in the fourth quarter, but Bayern responded to take its third straight win. Maxi Kleber made 4 of 5 three-pointers for 14 points to lead the winners. J.R. Reynolds scored 17 for Buducnost.

Group D

In a direct fight to finish second in Group D, Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem downed ratiopharm Ulm 69-64 at home on Wednesday. Hapoel finished in from of Ulm with a 5-3 record, while Ulm fell to 4-4 ahead of Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar. Curtis Jerrells paced the winners with 20 points. Amare Stoudamire added 16 points and 11 rebounds, while Jerome Dyson had 13 points, including 9 in a decisive 12-1 run that sealed the outcome in the final minutes. Raymar Morgan led Ulm with 13 points. In a clash of past champions, Antoine Diot hit a buzzer-beating three-pointer to lift first-place Valencia Basket to a 78-77 win over Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar. The visitors had an 11-point fourth-quarter lead, but Diot hit 3 three-pointers and scored all of his 11 points in the final 5:04 of the game to rally the hosts to their sixth consecutive win and a 7-1 regular season record. Bojan Dubljevic paced the hosts with 14 points, while Kevin Jones scored 19 in defeat.

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