FC Barcelona started its ADIDAS NEXT GENERATION TOURNAMENT with a comfortable 63-82 victory over ASVEL Lyon Villeurbanne in Group B in L’Hospitalet. Nedim Dedovic paced Barcelona with 19 points while Jaume Sorolla collected 14 points and nine rebounds, Alejandro Mazaira had 12 points, Eric Martinez chipped in 10 points and Stefan Peno added nine points, five rebounds, four assists and four steals. While Barcelona improved to 1-0, ASVEL dropped to 0-1 despite Amine Noua’s 19 points, seven rebounds and three steals.

After three lead changes, Thomas Vincent’s three-pointer provided the fourth tie at 11-11. Dedovic scored five points and Hugo Bartolome nailed a three-ball as Barcelona used a 0-12 run for an 11-23 advantage. Noua scored and three ASVEL players all split two free throws as the French club got to within 16-23. But Barcelona finished the first quarter with the final six points for a 16-29 lead. Noua made it 18-29 before a layup and three-ball from Mazaira pushed the lead to 18-34. A Peno three-point play extended the cushion to 20-37 and back-to-back layups by Dedovic had the Spanish team up 22-41. ASVEL temporarily got the deficit down to 24-41 but a Martinez trey left Barcelona ahead 26-48. The margin was 29-53 at intermission.

Mazaira’s three-point play finished an 0-7 run to start the second half for Barcelona, which led 29-60. Sofiane Briki and Vincent knocked down three-balls to get the deficit down to 35-60. And three scores by Kevin Hangoue trimmed the margin to 47-69 after 30 minutes. Noua scored to make it 51-71 but Sorolla scored five points to push the Barcelona lead back out to 51-78. Dylan Palcy tallied four points to get ASVEL Lyon to within 57-78 with four minutes left. But the French team would not get closer than 19 points until the final score.