The Top 16 came to a close last night and the remaining spots for the last-eight were determined.
Despite travelling to Italy and beating Montepaschi Siena 102-90, Real Madrid missed out as they fialed to match the points difference that Montepaschi beat them by in their meeting in the Spanish capital. Gescrap also qualified in second place in Group F as they had a better spread than Real.
It was a fast-paced encounter, as Madrid worked to get quick buckets, but Siena matched them for the first two quarters, with the hosts lead at the half 53-52.
Madrid stepped up a gear in the third, but it was wasn’t enough. Felipe Reyes led Real with a double-double of 17 points and 14 rebounds. Bo McCalebb and Tomas Ress both led Montepaschi with 15 points.
“We are happy about being in the playoffs, but too bad we lost a game at home tonight,” Ress said afterwards. “We have to win at home. We have not played good defense and we have haad problems with rebounds, I think those are the reasons of our loss.”
Real Madrid coach Pablo Laso was proud of his team despite not progressing to the quarter-finals: “Congratulations to my team. It was not easy to come here and win by 20 points. Everybody will remember this game not only for the result but also for the great basketball both teams played.”
Gescrap Bilbao advanced thanks to a 59-55 away win against Unicaja Malaga, which meant that Madrid had to win by 23 points in Siena to beat the spread.
Aaron Jackson and Marko Banic each scored 10 points with the latter pulling down six rebounds in a low-scoring contest. Hrvoje Peric led all scorers with 19 points in vain for Malaga who finish bottom with a record of 0-6.
Needing to win by more than one point to qualify, Olympiacos did that comfortably by seeing-off Galatasaray at the Peace and Friendship Stadium 88-81 and condemning the Turkish side to elimination from Group E. Olympiacos ended up in second with a 3-3 record.
Vassilis Spanoulis was unstoppable for the hosts as he posted impressive figures of 20 points, eight assists and four steals, leading Olympiacos to a rematch of last season’s quarter-final with Montepaschi Siena.
CSKA Moscow were already through but continued their dominance of Group E with a comfortable 82-65 win against Anadolu Efes, who were eliminated last week.
Andrei Kirilenko posted 15 points, four assists and three steals to lead Moscow.
Sasha Vujacic led Anadolu with 17 points in vain. This year’s Final Four in Istanbul will not have a hometown team involved.
