Canadians in Europe: December 3rd-6th
All the highlights from what was a highly dramatic week of Canadian-centric basketball across Europe's top pan-continental leagues this week:
FIBA Champions League
Plenty of Champions League's games were close and came down to the last minute, and Dyshawn Pierre and Aaron Best found themselves in two of them.
Pierre had 11 points and 7 rebounds for Dinamo Sassari, who led Manresa by as many as twelve points before the game got much tighter down the stretch. Manresa took the lead in the last two minutes, but despite Sassari’s best efforts, they lost the game 74-73.
For PAOK, Best had 16 points off the bench against Bonn, who fell behind by ten points in the second half but tied the game up with 17 seconds to go. Evangelos Margaritis made the game-winning shot for PAOK, who breathed a big sigh of relief having secured the win.
Elsewhere, Kyle Witler started and posted 16 points for PTT Ankara while Thomas Scrubb finished with 14 points for visiting Strasbourg. After seeing their early double-digit lead disappear, Strasbourg had to make their close-range offence count to ensure victory - and in the end they were able to, capturing the win by 83 points to 75. At the same time, Owen Klassen had four points and rebounds for the Antwerp Giants, who could do nothing but watch Hapoel Jerusalem get further and further out of reach, en route to a 94-72 win.
EuroCup Women
Landes trailed visiting Miskolv for the first half, but dominated the second with a double-digit buffer regularly between the teams. Miranda Ayim scored 10 points while Katherine Plouffe had 13 off the bench for Landes, who finished the game 81-66 ahead and Group H with a perfect 6-0 record.
KP Brno rose to the occasion when they had to - coming back from a 14-points deficit against Ramla in the first half to take the lead in the last minute of play. Emily Potter had four points in Brno’s 72-69 win over their Israeli visitors, the team then faced a day-long wait to see if that would be enough.
After Gorzow beat Botas in the last game of Group A, all four teams had finished on a 3-3 record. The decision who would qualify would then come down to scoring difference, and Brno’s was the worst, spelling the end for theirs and Potter's campaign in Europe this season.
Euroleague Women
After a back-and-forth first half against TTT Riga, it was plain sailing for Nadezhda the rest of the way. With the edge on offence and 14 points and 8 rebounds from Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe, the Russian team built a big enough lead to not worry about the win for the game's remainder. The final score, 69-61.
Elsewhere, a double-double for Michelle Plouffe, 14 points and 11 rebounds, would not be enough for ASVEL against visiting Gdynia. The Polish club dominated offence behind a game-high 29 points from Maryia Papova and saw out the win 87-71 over struggling ASVEL.
Euroleague
Nik Stauskas impressed with 16 points for Baskonia, but there was no answer for the red-hot offence of Efes Istanbul, who led by ten at the end of the first quarter and twenty at half time. Baskonia were resigned to a loss early on, which at the end was by 102 points to 77.
Meanwhile, Aaron Doornakemp had five points off of Valencia’s bench as they kept the game tight agains compatriot team Real Madrid early on, but then let them get away in the second half. Valencia were left floundering at the bottom of the table by high-flying Real Madrid after the 111-99 loss.
Picture: FIBA.com
