Neptunas KO’s Oktyabr with road win

Neptunas Klaipeda took a big step toward the Last 32 by escaping from Volgograd with a huge 74-97 win over Krasny Oktyabr on Wednesday in Group F. Neptunas raised its record to 5-3 to share second place with Nizhny Novgorod, while Krasny Oktyabr was eliminated after falling to 1-7. A 12-2 run midway through the second quarter opened a double digit cushion for Neptunas, 21-33, and a 0-8 push before halftime buzzer made it 29-43 at the break. Another 11 unanswered points early in the second half made it a 20-point game and Neptunas kept the huge difference till the final buzzer. Vytautas Saraskauskas led the winners with an outstanding performance of 24 points on 6-of-7 two-poin shooting and , 10 rebounds, Mindaugas Girdziunas added 19 points on 3-of-4 shooting from downtown, while Arnas Butkevicius and Donatas Zavackas scored 13 each in victory. Krsany Oktyabr made 11 of its 27 three-pointer attempts with Vasily Zavoruev drilling 20 points on 5-of-9 from long distance, Maks Adam Konate added 18 with 15 boards in his Eurocup debut, while Evgenii Voitiuk scored 13.

The guests opened the game by scoring the first 5 points, then newcomer Konate put the home team in front 9-8 by scoring its third jumper of the night. After Zavackas hit a three for the visitors, they kept a slim margin till the end of the quarter and led 15-21 at the buzzer. Konate brought Oktyabr within 19-21, but Neptunas answered with a 0-8 run fueled by 4 points each by Daniel Ewing and Sarakauskas to take a double digit margin midway through the quarter. Zavoruev scored 5 points in a row to keep Oktyabr close, 29-35, but Girdziunas scored twice from long distance to make it 29-43 for the guests at halftime.

Evgenii Voitiuk from downtown made it 36-46 early in the third quarter, then a 0-11 run, highlighted by 5 points by Travis Bader, gave a 21-point margin to Neptunas, 36-57. Zavoruev scored for the home team, while the visiting team got a big contribution from Sarakauskas and Girdziunas to finish the quarter ahead 51-73. Sarakauskas from the three-point land raised the difference to 53-82 with six minutes left in the game, while Zavoruev and Voitiuk tried to boost Krasny to avoid a bigger difference and fixed the final at 74-97.