U18 Unicaja Malaga clinched fifth place at the Euroleague Basketball ADIDAS NEXT GENERATION TOURNAMENT Qualifying Tournament – Torneo Citta di Roma with a hard-fought 62-74 victory over U18 CSKA Moscow. Victor Aguilar paced Unicaja with 20 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists and 9 fouls drawn, while Ablaye Sow chipped in with 13 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists. Ignacio Trujillo added 13 points and 7 rebounds in the win for Unicaja, which only lost one game at the ANGT Rome. CSKA finished sixth with just one victory in Rome, despite Mikhail Andrianov totaling 16 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists while Andrei Lopatin picked up 13 points, 7 rebounds and 3 steals and Daniil Trostin had 11 points.

After Ivan Raut opened the game for Unicaja with a three-pointer, Andrianov and Trostin scored to give CSKA its first advantage 4-3. The lead switched hands the next five scores with Sow making it 8-9. An Ignacio Rosa free throw and Franco Acosta three-point play pushed the margin to 8-13. Trostin answered with a three-pointer for CSKA only to see Sow score and assist on the final two scores of the quarter which ended with Unicaja up 11-17. Trujillo’s put-back started the second quarter and increased the advantage to 8 points, 11-19. CSKA came up with a big 16-3 spurt with Andrianov and Alekandr Ershov each hitting a three-pointer and combining for 14 points to go up 27-22. Aguilar countered with a pair of baskets in a 0-6 run to reclaim the lead. Artem Kuzmin gave CSKA back the lead with a three-pointer and Trostin knocked down a trey to go into the intermission ahead 35-30.

Unicaja opened the second half with the first 6 points to move back ahead. Two more lead changes followed with Sow starting a 0-12 run to give Unicaja the advantage 39-50. CSKA did not give up with Andrianov hitting a three-ball and Lopatin scoring 4 points as the Russian club trailed 48-54 after 30 minutes. Sow and Aguilar tallied to start the fourth quarter and Unicaja led 48-58. But Konstantin Shevchuk punched back with back-to-back three-pointers and Andrianov trimmed the margin to 56-60. Unicaja called a time out and created problems for CSKA’s offense, which missed its next 8 shots and turned the ball over twice over the next 5:38 minutes while Unicaja managed the final decisive 0-8 run for a 56-68 lead with 1:15 minutes remaining.