BC “Prometey” – BC “Umana Reyer Venice” (Italy) – 89:82 (20:21, 20:23, 31:25, 18:13), November 22. BKT EuroCup. 8th round. Riga (Latvia). Arena Riga.
BC “Prometey”: Agada* (12 + 5 assists). Odiase* (7), March* (5), Bobrov* (3), Tkachenko* (5), Sanon (12), Balvin (15 + 8 rebounds), Sydorov, captain (12 + 5 assists), Lypovyy (11), Gray (7)
BC “Umana Reyer Venice”: Tessitori* (9 + 6 rebounds), De Nikolao* (6 + 6rebounds + 4 assists), Simms* (11), Casarin* (10), Tucker* (15 + 7 rebounds), O’Connell (13 + 4 assists), Wiltjer (18), Brooks (0).
The match of the penultimate round of the BKT EuroCup first tour, where “Prometey” hosted in Riga Italian “Reyer Venice”, without any exaggeration, could be called a crucial one and very important for our team. It was exactly the case today, when the result came to the fore, not the quality of the game. The defeat would be an extremely undesirable considering the fact that Ronen Ginzburg’s squad has to cap the first part of the regular season with a match on the court of another direct competitor – Spanish “Joventut”.
The match turned out to be exactly like this. It revealed that Prometey” has a lot to work on and improve, but the most important thing is that the team gained such a needed victory – 89:82. The debut of the confrontation was quite nervous: both teams made a lot of mistakes in offensive actions. The “titans”, in their inherit style, willingly attacked from the perimeter and two attempts in the first five-minute segment by Ivan Tkachenko and Viacheslav Bobrov, who appeared on the floor in the starting five, were successful ones. Overall, in the starting quarter, none of the rivals could be named a leader, the figures on the scoreboard was the evidence – 21:20 in favour of the visitors.
Within the first two minutes of the second quarter, “Venice” made a 10:0 run, the first significant one in this match for both teams. In the second half of the quarter, the “titans” responded with their “explosion”, which allowed them to reduce their lag from “-12” to “-3”. “-4” after the first 20 minutes made chances of “Prometey” for the overall success quite possible.
In the 26th minute, after the third hit by Oleksandr Lypovyy from a far, “Ptometey” finally took the lead – 59:58. In the course of the quarter, the Ukrainian club even had an advantage of 6 points, but before the last break, there was just one possession between the teams – 71:69 in favour of “Prometey”.
In the debut of the final quarter, Issuf Sanon was “on fire”. Two his “triples” helped our team to keep the rival on distance and also gave necessary energy to his teammates. Back in the first half of the quarter, handicap of Ukrainian team reached “10+” mark. Italian club was fighting till the end. 86 seconds before the final buzzer, Amedeo Tessitori reduced “Venice” lag to 4 points. However, his failure to hit “Prometey” rim put an end to the hopes of the Italians.
As a result, “Prometey” has 50% of victories in 8 matches and is ahead of its today’s opponent in the tournament standings.
