FIBA Europe Cup - Round of 32 Week 1 Review

MUNICH (FIBA Europe Cup) - We take a look back at the opening week of action in the FIBA Europe Cup Round of 32 which concluded on Wednesday night and was marked by some unexpectedly big-margin wins.

Ten of the 16 games ended in a double-digit margin of victory, while in half of the encounters, the winning side celebrated a success of 20 points or more.

There were four exceptions, all of them on Wednesday, where we saw tight clashes with a nail-biting finale, including two over-time games.

In Group O, Krka Novo Mesto piped Maccabi Rand Media to the post 79-76 while in Group V magnofit Güssing Knights out-scored AEK Larnaca 20-1 in the final minutes to snatch a 68-60 win.

In Group S, Cibona Zagreb survived a late Energia Targu-Jiu surge and prevailed 93-88 in overtime while the most thrilling game of all was the last on the schedule, as in Group R Foxtown Cantú edged out Enisey Krasnoyarsk 95-92 in the extra period.

Interestingly, the competition had an unmistakable national flavour this week with all Belgian, French, Turkish and Italian teams winning, while the Lithuanian, Polish and Swedish teams were all on the losing end.

And then they were four

Two of the six teams that had reached Wednesday evening on a perfect record were forced to hand over the halo of the undefeated and join the ranks of the mortals, both losing their respective games by a 24-point margin.

Khimik Yuzhne did not want to experience fall of grace so they delivered a superb defensive performance to inflict this fate upon their Wednesday hosts, Bakken Bears Aarhus.

The Ukrainian team clinched a surprisingly comfy 75-51 win on the road in this battle of previously undefeated teams, as Bakken amassed not only their lowest scoring output this season but also the lowest by any team who won a Regular Season group.

BK Ventspils fared better than the Bears offensively but still suffered the same fate, as they found themselves on the wrong end of an 88-64 beating at CEZ Nymburk.

Following the defeats of Bakken and Ventspils, the four teams who remain undefeated and extended their winning streak to seven games this week are Port of Antwerp Giants, Fraport Skyliners, Türk Telekom Ankara and the aforementioned Khimik Yuzhne.

Stats of the week

Tsmoki Minsk went into their Wednesday Group V clash at Openjobmetis Varese averaging a competition second-best 91.3 points per game, but their Italian hosts were deeply unimpressed and held Minsk to 28 points below their Regular Season average output as they clinched a 94-63 triumph.
Perhaps the most worrying aspect for Minsk is that this result came only three days after their heaviest defeat of the season, 92-48 at CSKA Moscow in VTB United League action, so it poses the question of whether this signals the start of a dramatic plunge in scoring for the Belarus champions. Prior to that defeat in Moscow, Minsk were averaging 85 points in their first 10 games in the VTB League.

Pieno Zvaigzdes will have little sympathy for Minsk's woes and with good reason, as they are still trying to wrap their heads around their own incredible predicament.

The Lithuanian team was quite literally flawless in their Tuesday Group S game at STB Le Havre, shooting an outlandish 27-of-30 from within the arc.

This represents a 90% two-point field-goal percentage which is quite obviously a new FIBA Europe Cup record and one that will likely stay for some time.

Despite this impressive figure however, Pieno Zvaigzdes lost 96-84 to their French hosts as Le Havre drilled 11 of their first 14 three-point attempts, including going 6-of-6 from downtown in the late third-quarter stretch that defined the game.

Performance of the week

Anthony Watts has put in several solid performances so far in the FIBA Europe Cup, but Wednesday did not appear to be his day and magnofit Gussing Knights trailed Petrolina AEK by 11 points with just over six minutes remaining.

The American forward however is either one of those people who always see the glass half-full, or a person with a high sense of urgency.

Either way, when he glanced at the scoreboard all he could see was plenty of time left to turn things around, so he poured in 14 of his game-high 19 points in the final six-minute stretch to lead Gussing to an improbable 68-60 comeback victory.

Watts also collected a season-high nine rebounds, as well as two assists, one block, one steal while he drew six fouls from his opponents.

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