By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The amazing round of Boulogne Metropolitans 92 continued in the Top16 with a big road by four points (84-79) over Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar in Group F.
David Michineau with 19 points, Anthony Brown with 17 points and eight rebounds, and Archie Goodwin with 15 points led the charge and closed the game the right way from the free throws line.
Lokomotiv led by a small margin until the end of the third quarter, the French side got the lead with five minutes left and kept it until the end. Mindaugas Kuzminskas scored 21 points for the losing side, but couldn’t save the day.
As Boulogne’s coach Jure Zdovc admitted: “For me, it was important that my players believed that they can win because our club doesn’t really have a history in Europe and Lokomotiv is a very strong team. And this game, in the end, was easy for us: no big pressure”.
Meanwhile, the winning side signed Paul Stoll to a short-term deal to take the place of injured point guard Brandon Brown. Stoll was not available in the game against Loko.
On the contrary, in Group G Buducnost VOLI Podgorica dominated at home and got the 108-80 win over Bourg en Bresse. Nikola Ivanovic with 17 points led a balanced offensive effort of five double-digit scorers as Buducnost jumped to a 55-41 halftime lead and never looked back.
Danilo Adjusic also scored 17 points for the losing side, but Bourg simply was outmatched.
As Ivanovic said: “We really have to be satisfied with the way we played. Maybe defensively, when we talk about basketball, it wasn’t perfect, but in the offense it looked really great. We shared the ball. We found a lot of open looks. We found a lot of easy points. We were playing smart when we were supposed to and it was definitely a good start to the Top 16.”