Canadians In Europe: September 30th - October 2nd

After a long lull, Europe's premier basketball competitions are back underway and there was plenty of action to be had on day one, much of it down to the Canadian players taking part in the re-start.

Euroleague

Dyshawn Pierre had just one field goal and one free throw for Fenerbahce, who pulled further and further away from Crvena Zvezda Belgrade the longer this match-up between them went on. With a game-high 17 points, Lorenzo Brown guided the Turkish team to start their new Euroleague campaign with a home win, 77 points to 63, over their opponents from Serbia.

Kevin Pangos was the guiding light in his Euroleague debut for new club Zenit St Petersburg. On the road against Efes Istanbul, this match-up shifted dramatically quarter to quarter and hard to call by the end of the fourth. Pangos made the late moves to get Zenit’s new Euroleague campaign off to the best start, recordinf a career-best 23 points on 5 for 5 field shooting while St Petersburg recorded a 73-69 victory.

EuroCup

In Bourg-en-Bresse’s first game in pan-European competition basketball, Thomas Scrubb contributed six points and four assists off the bench. The French team had a 31-15 lead over Bahcesehir Istanbul at the end of the first, a big enough buffer they were able to sustain to the end of the game, picking up a comprehensive road win. The final score was 99-82 in their favour.

Less fortunate were Brescia, who did see an impressive 12 points from Kenny Cherry, but after fighting hard to hold off Buducnost for the first three quarters, they ran out of resolve in the fourth. On the other side, Melvin Ejim gave the Montenegrin team a late double-digit lead to ensure victory. The last of his 16 points brought the final score 93 to 81 to Buducnost.

Connor Morgan played a starting role and scored 14 points for Joventut who came back from ten down against Partizan Belgrade. As the gap got narrower the game became more and more tense. It all came down to two inspired moments from Pau Ribas in the dying seconds of the game that decided which team would open this year's EuroCup with a win.

FIBA Champions League

Before a new season of the Champions League can begin, the 2019-20 trophy has to be awarded. The eight teams who qualified for the knockout round will therefore enter into a single-elimination tournament to decide whose wait for the title would have been worth it.

Aaron Doornakemp started and had 13 points and 8 rebounds for Canarias, as well as being the top three point shooter in all of this game against Zaragoza. A concentrated low-post effort in the third from Zaragoza gave them the double-digit lead that proved too much for their compatriots to come back from. A late 6-0 run would seal Zaragoza's place in the semi finals, with a final score of 87-81.

PTT Ankara saw their fortunes change very dramatically - after leading by twelve points in the first quarter, Dijon upped their inside play to go in front in the following period.

Ankara were led by a stand-out performance from Tyler Ennis - 14 points and 10 rebounds - he got them to within one point of Dijon with thirty seconds to go. His team mate, Kyle Wiltjer, who had a team-high 19 points, could not get one more to save the Champions League campaign for the Turkish team