Gameday 8 MVP Baron lives 'in the moment'

KLAIPEDA (Basketball Champions League) - When a player has that 'can't miss' confidence coursing through his veins as Jimmy Baron did on Tuesday night with Neptunas Klaipeda in the Basketball Champions League, look out! Anything can happen.

Like many times in his career, the 30-year-old found a shooting rhythm that left no doubt about which team was going to win. He fired his team to a 103-88 victory over Muratbey Usak Sportif.

But Basketball League single-game records of 10 made 3-balls and 42 points? That's something completely different. This was incredible.

Baron entered a world that only great shooters have a chance to travel to. The performance has left everyone in Klaipeda scratching their heads and wondering if it really happened?

The video evidence proves that yes, it did happen.

Baron has been such a hot shooter in Europe that he can't say for sure that it's the best offensive performance of career. What a lot of people may not realize is just how darn good Baron has been in his life, including in college when he played for the Rhode Island Rams. He graduated from URI in 2009 as the Atlantic-10 Conference's all-time leader in career 3-point field goal makes.

So after his incredible performance against Muratbey Usak Sportif, when he's asked if it's the best game of his career, he shrugs his shoulders and answers: "It's up there. It's definitely, it's just the moment.

"You just can't explain it when you have that feeling, it's a part of it. (But) I can't say it enough, great coaches - it helps my job as a shooter and I can't stress that enough."

His head coach is Dainius Adomaitis and the assistants at Neptunas are Mindaugas Brazys and Marius Linartas. Baron has also had the luxury of being the son of a great coach, Jim Baron. The son is extremely proud of his father, who had a lot of success in his time as a college coach.

Jim Baron coached his son at Rhode Island and then moved to Canisius, where he coached until the end of the 2015-16 campaign before announcing his retirement. It was there that he coached Jimmy Baron's brother, current Murcia sharpshooter Billy Baron.

And speaking of Billy Baron, it turns out that Jimmy is not the only member of the family who knows how to put the ball in the basket. Billy Baron had 36 points in a game last season for Proximus Spirou in the Eurocup.

"We're different people, different players," Baron said of his 26-year-old sibling. "He's a great player in his his own right. I think I might be a little bit older, more experienced - slightly better looking (smiles). Just kidding."

Billy Baron wasn't in Klaipeda watching his brother set the Basketball Champions League alight. But he was watching, it turns out.

Baron was clearly loving the opportunity to catch fire on Tuesday and to become the man of the moment in the Basketball Champions League.

What he was most excited about was his team's result, its seventh win in eight Basketball Champions League games. They had won comfortably while not playing at their best.

"We made some mistakes, but we took something positive from the game," he said.

Jimmy Baron's focus is on the team's success

"I think as a team, especially on defense and in rebounding, we need to really make a better effort if we want to achieve the goals that we have. As players, we need to execute better if we want to go far in this league."