2014-15Last 32Round 2
January 14, 2015 CET: 20:30
Local time: 20:30 PABELLON PRINCIPE FELIPE

CAI Zaragoza defense assures strong win over Virtus Rome

Marcus Landry - CAI Zaragoza - EC14 (photo Ramon Comet-CAI Zaragoza)

CAI Zaragoza evened its record in Group I of the Last 32 with a strong 67-53 victory at home over Virtus Rome. Marcus Landry hit 6 three-pointers in scoring 20 points for CAI, which improved to 1-1. Jason Robinson chipped in 11 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists while Chris Goulding added 10 points. Rome dropped to 1-1 – as both teams have a home win and road loss – despite 18 points and 8 rebounds from Bobby Jones. Maxime De Zeeuw added 10 points in the loss.

Jones knocked down a three-pointer to start the scoring for Rome. Robinson and Landry followed with back-to-back three-balls and Henk Norel scored 2 baskets to open a 12-3 lead. Jones hit his second long ball and De Zeeuw also hit from deep to bring Rome to within 12-9. Goulding came back with a triple and Stevan Jelovac had a three-point play and another basket to increase the margin to 20-9. It was 22-11 after 10 minutes. Daniele Sandri’s free throw and layup were followed by another Jones trey as Rome made it 22-17. Pedro Llompart’s three-pointer pushed the lead back to eight points. But Jones connected on four free throws to trim it to 25-21. Rome couldn’t get the defensive stops and Robinson completed a three-point play for a 28-21 lead. The cushion was 28-23 at intermission.

Jelovac started the second half with a three-ball to make it 31-23. Kyle Gibson hit Rome’s first basket of the third quarter and Jones’ three-pointer cut the gap to 33-28. After a Goulding score, Landry nailed 2 three-pointers for a 41-28 cushion. Melvin Ejim snapped a four-minute scoreless streak but Goulding’s triple had Zaragoza up 44-30. And neither team scored in the final 2:50 minutes of the third quarter. Lorenzo D’Ercole hit a trey to start the fourth but Rasko Katic scored for the hosts and Landry knocked down 2 more three-pointers to increase the lead to 52-35. The margin was up to 57-39 after a Robinson long ball. Rome had one more comeback left as De Zeeuw and Rok Stipcevic both hit from long range and Stipcevic trimmed the margin to 60-51 with 2 minutes to play. But Llompart made two free throws and Landry nailed another three-pointer and the lead was back to 65-51 to decide the game.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Eurocupbasketball.com
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Referees: CHRISTODOULOU, CHRISTOS; OVINOV, SEMEN; GLISIC, ALEKSANDAR
Attendance: 6543 (Tentative)
By Quarter1234
CAI Zaragoza2261623
Virtus Rome1112723
End of Quarter1234
CAI Zaragoza22284467
Virtus Rome11233053
CAI Zaragoza
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
10 LISCH, KEVIN 11:30 2 0/2 0/2 2/2   1 1     2     2 4 -1
12 LLOMPART, PEDRO 28:30 5   1/1 2/2   4 4 6   2     2 4 15
14 KATIC, RASKO 12:08 2 1/2     3 6 9   1         1 12
15 SASTRE, JOAN 9:57 2 1/1 0/1   1   1 1 1         1 5
19 TOMAS, PERE 9:17                 1         1 2
20 ROBINSON, JASON 30:43 11 2/5 2/8 1/1   6 6 4 1       3 3 13
21 PURSL, SIMON DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
24 LANDRY, MARCUS 30:40 20 1/3 6/12     3 3   2 2 1     1 17
25 NOREL, HENK 22:04 6 3/5     4 5 9 1 1 1     2 1 13
31 FONTET, ALBERT 4:00           1 1               1
43 GOULDING, CHRIS 30:03 10 1/3 2/8 2/2       3 2 2 1 1 3 2 4
89 JELOVAC, STEVAN 11:08 9 2/3 1/3 2/3   2 2     5     4 3 1
Team           1 2 3               3
Totals 200:00 67 11/24 12/35 9/10 9 30 39 15 9 14 2 1 16 21 85
        45.8% 34.3% 90%
Head coach: RUIZ, JOAQUIN
Min: Minutes played; Pts: Points; 2FG M-A: 2-point Field Goals (Made-Attempted); 3FG M-A: 3-point Field Goals (Made-Attempted); FT M-A: Free Throws (Made-Attempted); Rebounds: O (Offensive), D (Defensive), T (Total); As: Assists; St: Steals; To: Turnovers; Bl: Blocks (Fv: In Favor / Ag: Against); Fouls: Cm (Commited), Rv (Received); PIR: Performance Index Rating
Virtus Rome
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
3 EJIM, MELVIN 21:16 4 2/2 0/2   1 2 3 1 1 2 1   2   4
5 TRICHE, BRANDON 18:08 2 1/6 0/2   2 2 4 2 2 4   1 2 2 -2
6 JONES, BOBBY 35:39 18 1/1 4/10 4/6 1 7 8 1   2     3 6 20
10 D'ERCOLE, LORENZO 21:09 3 0/1 1/3   1 2 3 2 1 1     2   3
12 SANDRI, DANIELE 8:34 3 1/1   1/2 1   1           1 1 3
14 DE ZEEUW, MAXIME 19:58 10 2/4 2/6   1 2 3 1   2     3 1 4
15 KUSHCHEV, OLEKSANDR DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
22 GIBSON, KYLE 26:41 6 3/6 0/7     1 1     2     5 1 -9
24 STIPCEVIC, ROK 28:33 7 2/3 1/7   1 1 2 4 1     1 1 4 9
25 MORGAN, JORDAN 20:02   0/2     2 5 7   2       2 1 6
Team           1 3 4               4
Totals 200:00 53 12/26 8/37 5/8 11 25 36 11 7 13 1 2 21 16 42
        46.2% 21.6% 62.5%
Head coach: DALMONTE, LUCA

Head Coaches

RUIZ, JOAQUIN
CAI Zaragoza
"I am happy because we managed to win a difficult game. When you lose a game the way we lost it the other day, you face a team in an excellent moment, winning its last three games, and what we planned goes right, you have to be satisfied. We started well, struggled on offense in the second quarter but managed to hold on to our defense. We managed to keep the lead all the way, playing with good rhythm, and managed to get an important win. A 14-point win at home and in a European competition always gives you an advantage. We are talking about a team which scores 83 points per game. They have athletic, physical players and we knew they would play aggressive on defense. We knew it was a team that takes a lot of three-point shots, but especially through Kyle Gibson and Rok Stipcevic, but their shots were not open."
DALMONTE, LUCA
Virtus Rome
"Congratulations to Zaragoza for this win. It is hard for me not to take into account the defensive effort we had today. We generated open shots but were not able to shoot with good percentages - and we were not able to change it, so carried on taking three-point shots instead of attacking the basket. We will now have a very tough home game against Cedevita Zagreb, a team which arrived from the Euroleague, to have our door open in our way into the Eurocup. We will try to get a win and try to face them again in the best possible condition."

Players

LANDRY, MARCUS
CAI Zaragoza
"It is a very important win. We knew we were better team than what we showed Sunday in the Spanish League against Gran Canaria. We played much better today, and we proved that with this win to our fans and everybody who watched."
JONES, BOBBY
Virtus Rome
"We knew it was going to be a tough game. We played them last year in the regular season, so I had the idea already and I told the other guys last couple of day how difficult it is going to be even though they are a completely different team this year. They played hard, we competed, we got a lot of good effort, but in the end they made a lot of tough shots. We wanted to keep the margin of victory down as low as we could. We lost couple points at the end, but overall we are satisfied with our performance even though we did not get a win. CAI got a lot of offensive rebounds, we gave them opportunities to score more shots, and we messed up on couple of defensive assignment and they capitalized on that. It was the little things, but a lot of little things add to be a big win at the end."