The roadmap to the Final Eight is nearly complete. Seven teams secured their place at the first-ever ULEB Cup Final Eight next month in Turin, Italy, by winning their respective Last 16 series on Tuesday. The only remaining spot will be decided on Wednesday, when Pamesa Valencia hosts Zadar needing to win by at least 6 points to join another former champion, Dynamo Moscow, in Turin. Tuesday’s results supplied some thrillers alongside some blowouts. The quarterfinal matchups are as follows: Dynamo Moscow vs. PGE Turow, Unics Kazan vs. Akasvayu Girona, Besiktas ColaTurka vs. Galatasaray Café Crown, and DKV Joventut vs either Pamesa Valencia or Zadar. The first team to go through was
Unics Kazan, which pulled away in the fourth quarter to beat Artland Dragons 74-59. Kazan needed to win by at least 3, finished the game with a 17-5 charge to secure the win. Darjus Lavrinovic stood tall with 21 points and 16 rebounds. Unics will meet Akasvayu Girona in the quarterfinals.
Akasvayu swept BC Hemofarm Stada by winning the second leg 76-62 behind Marc Gasol and Branko Cvetkovic, who each scored 16 points. Vladan Vukosavljevic gave his best effort for Hemofarm and finished with 23 points and 15 rebounds. Former champion
Dynamo Moscow crushed Lukoil Academic 103-77 as Henry Domercant and Travis Hansen shot a combined 9 for 10 from downtown. Domercant finished with 25 points in 22 minutes and Hansen scored 23 in 10 minutes.
PGE Turow advanced despite losing to BC Kyiv 58-67. Turow won the first leg in the Ukrainian capital 59-71. Kyiv threatened to close the gap, but never reached the needed 12-point margin. Manu Markoishvili missed a three-point shot from the top of the key at the buzzer that could have forced overtime. One of the most promising quarterfinal matchups could be the all-Turkish-League duel between Besiktas ColaTurka and Galatasaray Café Crown. Preston Shumpert and Rick Apodaca scored 24 points apiece as
Besiktas topped Red Star Belgrade 81-69. The first leg finished in an 80-80 tie. Later in the evening,
Kalise Gran Canaria bested Galatasaray 88-79, but it wasn’t enough to compensate for a 99-74 loss last week in Istanbul. Carl English netted 24 points for Granca, while Robert Hite held Galatasaray with 20 points and 8 rebounds.
DKV Joventut wrapped up its series with Khimki with a 69-54 win. Rudy Fernandez paced Joventut with 18 points as his team won by 38 aggregate points, despite having it lowest scoring evening of the season. And there’s one more game to go on Wednesday!!
Last 16, Game 1 rewind