VALENCIA (Jeff Taylor’s Eurovision) - If you wondered what the Basketball Champions League was going to be like, you got your answer in the opening week of the regular season.

It was terrific start to a competition that's a 50-50 joint partnership between FIBA and the 10 top European leagues, one that is touting the virtues of sporting principles. The idea is that clubs do no just get a free pass to take part because of their tradition or marketability. The clubs have to first qualify through their respective domestic leagues.

You shouldn't be hearing any complaints from the neutral fan because there were some real humdingers.

The biggest barn-burner of all was the triple overtime game served up by Polish side Rosa Radom and visiting PAOK from Greece.

Rosa Radom have a playground-esque quality to their game and Tyrone Brazelton, a 30-year-old American journeyman in Europe, has a game that has to be seen to be believed. He hit some spectacular shots.

His game-tying 3-ball with 16 seconds remaining in the first overtime was something else. Brazelton was the competition's Most Valuable Player in Round 1 after scoring 36 points and dishing out 9 assists.

"It was an unbelievable game," said Radom's 2.05m center, Darnell Jackson. "I think that's my first time ever having three overtimes." 

Partizan's triumph at MHP RIESEN Ludwigsburg had everybody buzzing back in Serbia.

Stefan Bircevic, a member of the country's Olympic team in Rio de Janeiro that claimed a silver medal, made a lay-up just before the final buzzer for a 65-64 win.

It was hard to tell that Partizan had won, in fact, when the club's 'tell-it-like-it-is' coach Aleksandar Dzikic focused more on his team's shortcomings than the game-winner.

"The thing that I don’t like about my team is that we didn't recognize the most important moments in the game," he said. "We had some chances to break our opponents and we didn't. I guess that’s something we have to work on."

Dzikic was able to cite at least one positive.

"We won and that's a great win for us on the road against a team that’s not a good match for us," he said.

There were a couple of moments in particular as a fan that made me like this game.

One was provided by Vanja Marinkovic, the 1.99 shooting guard who gave us a strong dose of excitement back at the 2014 FIBA U17 World Championship in Dubai to help his country capture a bronze medal. Marinkovic showed off that beautiful stroke when burying his only 3-pointer.

The other moment that you had to appreciate was turned in by veteran point guard Branislav Ratkovica. He had the cool head at the end.

Ratkovica was in the right corner with his team trailing by a point and just 2 seconds on the clock when he spotted Bircevic getting open under the basket. 

Ratkovica delivered a perfect pass to his teammate and the 2.10m center, who led Partizan with 15 points, beat the buzzer for the win.

It was a tough finish to the game for Wes Washpun, who missed his fourth free-throw shortly before Bircevic's game-winner. At the other end of the court, he dropped down low to guard the big man and left Ratkovica open in the corner. Washpun then ran at the Ratkovica so as not to give him an open 3-pointer, but the Serbian took a step in and made his game-winning pass.

Another game that had us on the edge of our seats until the very end was between Openjobmetis Varese and ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne.

"To start this competition with a win is something special. And it’s special how we won at the end." - Moretti 

Varese, remember, played very well last year and reached the Final of the FIBA Europe Cup in Chalon, France, before losing a tough encounter against Fraport Skyliners.

They were about to fall in their first Basketball Champions League game when ASVEL’s Adrian Uter rejected Varese hero Aleksa Avramovic’s shot in the waning seconds with the French club on top, 82-80.

The ball went straight to Estonia international Kristjan Kangur in the right corner and he drilled the go-ahead 3-ball.

"That’s the kind of moment when you don't have time to think," Kangur said. "Everything goes so fast. I was lucky. I had missed all the shots before and I made this one, so it was luck.”

"To start this competition with a win is something special," Varese coach Paolo Moretti said. "And it’s special how we won at the end."

Avramovic wasn't disappointed with the final outcome, that's for sure. And he looks like a player that we're going to be hearing a lot of this season.

A 21-year-old who played for hometown club Borac Cacak last season, Avramovic has come out of nowhere to post one of the best performances in the Basketball Champions League.

He finished with 29 points.

There were a lot more thrills in the opening week of the Basketball Champions League. The best thing of all? There is a lot more to come.

Jeff Taylor

FIBA

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