Great game played in Seville in which local team defeated spanish top team thanks to great defense and the contribution of Urtasun and Davis’ points. For the visiting side, only Chuck Eidson stood out.
Brilliant afternoon today in San Pablo, homecourt of Cajasol Banca Civica (CBC). A great team was around in town, a team known in all Europe, but today the local team gave an unexpected gift to the fans that came to the arena to see Navarro, Eidson, Lorbek… and company.
Xavi Pascual rules a team full of ace scorers, such as the previously mentioned and many more. On the other side, Joan Plaza, the local coach, has a team with players who have a huge desire to compete, no matter what they have to do. Their main weapon is defense. But today, when Barcelona started to score, the Sevillan team decided to do pretty much the same. Not only that, they tried to defend the way they know. In the beginning of the game, it seemed a losing effort, since Eidson, Ndong and Lorbek found the basket easily.
But the hard work was rewarded in the second quarter, when CBC managed to take the lead on the score. They only allowed Barcelona to score 9 points in 10 minutes, a remarkable thing to notice when we talk about one of the biggest teams in Europe. The quarter finished with a 38-34 on the score, with Paul Davis and Eidson scoring 14 and 11 points each.
The second half started in the same way. Navarro had lots of problems to defend Urtasun, who showed that the best defense is a good offense. Navarro just couldn’t stop his rival and found himself really tired when he had to score. The visitors seemed shocked, and CBC took advantage of that taking a 15-points lead by the middle of the third quarter.
In the last ten minutes, Barcelona tried everything to win the game. Chuch Eidson, the new kid in town, showed why he is one of the better players on the continent, taking the lead of his team. In addition to him, the young player Xavi Rabaseda netted a couple of key shots to put his team only 4 points down (60-56) with 3 minutes left. But the Sevillan team never lost its faith, the cold blooded Bogdanovic alongside Urtasun (did I mention the great match he played?) and Juanjo Triguero’s defense on Ndong and Vazquez finally edged Barcelona Regal, breaking a 19-game winning streak in the league (since the last season).
And finally, just mention that Earl Calloway played a great game, again, and seems to be fully recovered of his injuries, which stop him from being the great playmaker he is in the last months. Welcome back, Earl.
