MIES (Switzerland) - A lot can happen and change in four years, especially in basketball. La Laguna Tenerife have managed to prove it wrong, displaying consistency and being able to create a 31-game winning streak at home.
They looked unbeatable when playing in Santiago Martin Arena, and there's a reason why we are talking in the past tense. Because they were beaten, finally. The last time had happened on December 8, 2021.
On Wednesday, Trapani Shark made history in the Basketball Champions League, powered by Ameresco SUNEL. They did the unthinkable, pulling off the 83-80 road victory in Tenerife.
However, with Tenerife winning the reverse fixture by six, they own the tiebreaker over Trapani, meaning they won Group D and advanced to the Round of 16 for the 10th time in as many seasons.
Turning point
After a pretty comfortable first quarter by Tenerife, Trapani made their presence felt at the beginning of the second. That's when they created a 12-2 run to go up 34-24 with six minutes to play before halftime.
Later on, the black-and-yellow home side tried to come back into the picture with a late 12-3 run in the final stanza, but it ultimately wasn't enough.
Being up by three with 30 seconds to go, Trapani put the ball in J.D. Notae's hands and he delivered, scoring a tough layup in traffic to make it a two-possession game before Tenerife's final possession.
Game hero
Before the start of the 2025-26 BCL Regular Season, J.D. Notae was among the most interesting players to watch in the whole competition, being named last season's LBA Sixth Man of the Year.
Without Timmy Allen on the road in the Canary Islands, the American guard stepped up and delivered clutch plays, finishing with a team-high 24-point performance, shooting 9-of-10 from the charity stripe.
"It was a great win for the team. It just felt good to play together. No matter the circumstances we go through, we just stay together," he said after the game.
Stats don't lie
Tenerife didn't have the right mental approach on Wednesday, facing the Italian side.
It showed in the number of turnovers committed by Txus Vidorreta's team, 17. Trapani registered 10 steals and scored a total of 19 points off the opponents' turnovers.
Bottom line
Tenerife would have been certain of advancing directly to the Round of 16 with a victory or a defeat by up to five points, after winning 84-78 on the road in Sicily in the reverse fixture.
Therefore, this loss did interrupt their outstanding winning streak in front of the home fans, but also meant that the two-time champions are going straight to the Sweet 16 once again.
On the other note, Trapani will try to gain home-court benefit in the Play-Ins by not losing the head-to-head advantage against Tofas Bursa, which won the reverse fixture 91-89 on the road.
With this victory, they became the first Italian side since December 2022 to win a BCL road game in Spain after Dinamo Sassari at Unicaja (92-82).
They said
"For sure it's a big win for us, in a difficult moment, without 3 players. We are really happy this win. I asked the players to compete for 40 minutes, and we competed for 40 minutes. I am veryy happy that our pick and roll defensive efficiency was really, really great. Maybe the only negative part of the game was the rebounding batte. We allowed 12 offensive rebounds and we have to be better over there." - Alex Latini, Trapani Shark head coach