EUROLEAGUE – Olimpija edge Pana in OT; Fener win at Barca

LJUBLJANA (Euroleague) - Union Olimpija won a battle of unbeatens against Panathinaikos on Thursday in the Euroleague while Fenerbahce Ulker sent reigning champions Regal Barcelona crashing to their first defeat of the season.

Jure Zdovc's Slovenian giants needed overtime but defeated Pana, 85-84, in front of 13,000 screaming fans at the Stozice Arena.

In the final seconds of regulation, Olimpija point guard Saso Ozbolt tried to penetrate but the Panathinaikos defense batted the ball away, only for it to fall into the hands of a wide-open Vlado Ilievski.

The F.Y.R. of Macedonian international drilled a jump shot to knot the game at 72-72.

Once in the overtime, the Slovenians went on top by five points but only clinched victory but only after a missed free-throw by Dmitris Diamantidis.

The Panathinaikos guard was fouled while attempting a three-pointer and missed the third of his free-throw attempts.

Olimpija got terrific all-round efforts from Ilievski and Damir Markota.

The former finished with 11 points, six assists, three rebounds and three steals.

Markota scored 10, pulled down six boards, dished out four assists and came up with a steal.

"We have three wins which probably nobody expected from us at this point," Zdovc said, "but we are aware that we have done nothing yet.

"Virtus Roma also started with three wins last year and they didn't make the Top 16.

"We still have a lot of work to do, so there's no euphoria in the locker room.”

Diamantidis had a terrific game.

He led all scorers with 20 points and corralled seven rebounds while also handing out five assists.

Barcelona lost at their Palau Blaugrana to CAI Zaragoza in the ACB and on Thursday, Fenerbahce trailed in the fourth quarter but won, 69-61.

Pete Mickael had a game-high 17 points in defeat.

"We planned the game with three big keys: match Barcelona's physicality, avoid easy baskets and control (Juan Carlos) Navarro's shots," said Fener coach Neven Spahija.

"He went 0-of-5 from three-point range and this shows we managed to do it.

"We had a lot of rotations, controlled the rebounds and all of my players helped us because they all worked really hard even when this is still November, not May."

In other games, Cholet Basket edged Lietuvos Rytas, Real Madrid hammered Virtus Roma and Maccabi Tel Aviv defeated Partizan Belgrade.

Cholet's victory was their first of the Euroleague.

Young France international Fabien Causeur led the team with 20 points.

Causeur, 23, drew a lot of fouls and made nine of 14 shots at the charity stripe while teammate Vule Avdalovic also took a lot of trips to the line and sank all eight of his attempts.

Randal Falker, meanwhile, was very impressive on the boards.

The American center had 14 rebounds to go with his 11 points.

Lithuania international Martynas Gecevicius had 19 points in defeat.

Real Madrid outscored Roma 26-6 in the second quarter to take a 39-21 lead to half-time and ended up winning 74-56.

Madrid's Ettore Messina, coaching back in his home country, got 12 points apiece from Ante Tomic and Clay Tucker while Sergio Rodriguez scored nine, handed out seven assists and grabbed seven boards.

Jeremy Pargo poured in 17 points for David Blatt's Maccabi Tel Aviv in their 67-54 win at Partizan Belgrade.

Maccabi stormed into a 23-10 lead by the end of the opening quarter and led the rest of the way.

"It was so important to us to start the game being aggressive," Blatt said.

"That was the way to limit the influence from the supporters to Partizan players.

"And we did it playing very good defense the entire game."

FIBA