BC Prometey – BC Veolia Towers Hamburg (Germany) – 97:77 (35:15, 19:27, 24:20, 19:15). October 4. BKT EuroCup. 1st round. Riga (Latvia). Arena Riga.
BC Prometey: Agada* (8), Lypovyy* (1), Reed* (11). Keene* (19 + 6 assists), Odiase* (8), Sydorov, captain (11), March (10), Tkachenko (7), Sanon (3), Balvin (8 + 6 rebounds), Bobrov (11), Voinalovych (0).
BC Veolia Towers Hamburg: Meisner* (4), King* (11 + 7 rebounds), Durhem* (15), Hughes* (11 + 6 rebounds). Dziewa* (1), Christmas (9 + 7 rebounds), Gomez (10), Wohlfarth-Bottermann (7), Hinrichs (3 + 3 steals), Brauner (3), Krause (3).
With a match against Hamburg Towers from Germany, Prometey opened its second season in the EuroCup, the second prestigious continental club tournament. In their debut season, “titans” reached the semi-finals of the competitions, repeating the best national clubs’ accomplishment set ten years ago by “Budivelnyk” Kyiv. This year’s level of “red-and-white’s” ambitions is as minimum at the same level, at the same time, Prometey is considered by European expers as a team capable of winning the tournament.
The first our team’s rival cannot be named one of the Group A favourites. The opener of the tournament against them was quite an acceptable option given that the players of our team have just started to feel each other on the court. A noteworthy feature of the hosts’ starting five was Oleksandr Lypovyy’s appearing in it – for the first time in this season. Prometey got the game going with the excellent individual drive by Kaleb Agada and a long-range strike by Marcus Keene – 5:0 just within 30 seconds of the game. Hamburg stepped up quickly in respond and energetic meaningful basketball got underway on the court. Herewith, our team looked much better than the opponent did. Davon Reed supported Keen in good shots. Within first five minutes, our American guards scored off two throws from the perimeter each. That served to help “titans” to set their handicap at the mark of “10+”, which was doubled by the results of the starting quarter – 35:15.
It is quite a tough thing to maintain so high game level all through 40 minutes, so the second ten-minute segment went in more equal fight. Moreover, the visitors managed be in lead in this quarter. However, following the results of the first half of the game, “+12” was a comfortable advantage for Prometey – 54-42.
After 15-minute rest, out ream stepped up their game on the own glass. If in the first 20 minutes, our opponents had 10 offensive rebounds, the managed to pull down the next one only in the 29th minute. In addition, “titans” were keeping accuracy percentage of two-pointers at more than 70% and of three-pointers – slightly less than 40%. Before the final quarter, the hosts led by 16 points and were clear candidates for victory.
In the debut of the final quarter, Ronen Ginzburg’s squad regained a handicap of two dozens of points and later confidently brought the match to the winning end – 97:77. Its next EuroCup match, our team will hold on the road, on October 10, against Turkish Besiktas.
