MIES (Switzerland) - The third week of action in the Basketball Champions League concluded on Wednesday night, with La Laguna Tenerife and Falco-Vulcano Szombathely joining the list of 2-0 teams, next to FIT/One Wurzburg Basket, Unicaja, Aliaga Petkimspor, ERA Nymburk, Bertram Derthona Basket and Manisa Basket.
Falco-Vulcano Szombathely 78-71 Pallacanestro Reggiana
For just the second time in their BCL history, the Hungarian champions have opened up a Regular Season campaign on a 2-0 record. Pallacanestro Reggiana appeared like they could edge the hosts in a close game, but their fate was the same as that of many other teams in Hungary before them.
It was a 1-point game with two minutes to play, but Marvin Clark and Nikola Popovic had back-to-back gigantic dunks to put some daylight between the two teams, and get the crowd on their feet in Szombathely.
That set the stage for Zoltan Perl to do what he does best. Szombathely's proudest son delivered a big jumper to seal the deal, and scored eight of his 20 points in the closing three minutes, while also providing the assist for the aforementioned Popovic dunk.
Perl now has a total of nine BCL games scoring 20 points or more off the bench, more than any other player. He has already taken the record for most career bench points in this competition, and with Falco up to 2-0, he is definitely a frontrunner in the MVP Race, too.
Popovic scored 12, Kristof Bognar and Matt Tiby had 10 each for coach Milos Konakov.
The 19-year-old Mouhamed Faye was Reggiana's best player, finishing with 14 points and 7 rebounds, but they drop to 1-1.
Rytas Vilnius 98-75 WKS Slask Wroclaw
The next mission for Perl and Falco-Vulcano Szombathely is one of the toughest possible in all of Europe. They have to travel to Vilnius, to take on the Lithuanian champions, almost certainly in front of a capacity crowd.
Slask can tell them a thing or two on how hard it is to play there, as they were on the wrong end of a blow out on Wednesday, with Rytas claiming the lead after just 15 seconds of action and never looking back the rest of the night.
Gytis Radzevicius had a monster game with 23 points and 9 rebounds, earning himself an efficiency rating of 30, a game-high by some distance. Jayvon Graves and RJ Cole combined for 33 points, Graves also getting 7 rebounds and 5 assists.
The Lithuanian giants are now at 1-1, but their next two games offer them two chances of handing the group leaders from Hungary the first defeat of the season. Rytas host Szombathely on October 30, then the roles reverse on November 13.
# | TEAM | GP | W | L | % | For | AGT | -/+ | FA | AA |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 100.0 | 162 | 146 | 16 | 81.0 | 73.0 | 4 |
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2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 50.0 | 148 | 145 | 3 | 74.0 | 72.5 | 3 |
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3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 50.0 | 165 | 152 | 13 | 82.5 | 76.0 | 3 |
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4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0.0 | 150 | 182 | -32 | 75.0 | 91.0 | 2 |
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Kolossos H Hotels 47-71 La Laguna Tenerife
For the first time ever, a Basketball Champions League game was played in Rhodes, but La Laguna Tenerife were keen on sending a message on who's the best island team of this competition.
The Canary Islands club stifled Kolossos en route to what was a milestone 60th BCL win for Giorgi Shermadini. The Georgian center became the fifth player to get to 60 wins in the competition, joining his teammates Tim Abromaitis (72), Bruno Fitipaldo (64), Aaron Doornekamp (63) and Marcelinho Huertas (61).
Shermadini had 17 points on 8-of-9 shooting from the field, Fitipaldo following his lead with 13 points and 5 assists.
Andrew Goudelock had 10 points for the hosts.
NINERS Chemnitz 103-75 SL Benfica
The newcomers from Germany got off the mark with a dominant win over the Portuguese champions. Chemnitz put up 32 points in the first quarter and opened up a 15-point lead, not allowing Benfica to get into single digits for the remaining 30 minutes of the game.
Nine different players scored for coach Rodrigo Pastore, led by Victor Bailey Jr's 22 points in just 23 minutes of work, knocking down 4-of-6 three-pointers.
Chemnitz as a team were on point from beyond the arc, knocking down 15-of-29 shots from that distance.
Tyler Stone was Benfica's best player on the day, scoring 17 of his 28 points in the first half, but they are down at 0-2 with a pair of games against the 2-0 Derthona coming up for them.