The 17th round of the Euroleague will close today (Friday) and with it the first round of the strongest basketball league on the continent. Apart from Maccabi Tel Aviv’s game in Madrid, Andolo Eps opened the evening with a victory over Villerban. In addition, Olympiakos will host Milan for an intriguing encounter and Valencia will play against Red Star Belgrade.
Andolo Eps (8:9) – Villerban (11:6) 72:78
The European champion is far from impressing this season in the Euroleague, and that was the case tonight. Andolo continued to show the bad ability from the loss to Maccabi Tel Aviv last week even at the start of the game until the break scoring only 29 points on the way to falling behind by seven. Even at the start of the second half, the French managed to keep a margin from the Turks, who only got into things in the last quarter.
Seven minutes to the end Willerban still led by eight points, but then came Will Clyburn, who led a 2:18 run and finished with 11 points in the decisive quarter on the way to a very important victory for his team, which tied with Zalgiris with the same balance in eighth place. The French are counting their third loss in a row since the victory over Olympiakos.
Vasilija Micic led Andolo with 22 points, Clyburn added 15 points of his own and Rodrigue Beauvois contributed 13 points. On the other side, Nando de Colo and David Leighty finished as the outstanding scorers with 12 points each.