Ludwigsburg stops group leader, but can't advance

MHP RIESEN Ludwigsburg finished its Eurocup campaign on a high note by beating Last 32 Group L winner Zenit St. Petersburg 85-72 at home. Ludwigsburg finished the group with a 3-3 record but it needed Umana Reyer Venice to beat Stelmet Zielona Gora to reach the Eurocup Eighthfinals, which did not happen. Royce O'Neale led Ludwigsburg with 16 points and 9 rebounds while Jon Brockman had 16 points and 7 rebounds. Rocky Trice scored 11 points and Jason Boone and Tekele Cotton both added 10 points in the win. Zenit had already secured first place in the group and dropped to 4-2 despite Andrey Koshcheev and Ryan Toolson both scoring 16 points while Andrei Desyatnikov added 10 points in the loss. Zenit will face fellow Russian side Nizhny Novgorod in the eighthfinals.

Andrey Koshcheev put in the first basket of the game for the guests with Brockman hitting at the other end. After Janis Timma’s three-ball had Zenit up 2-7, Brockman scored 4 straight points only to see Toolson knock down a three-pointer to make it 6-10. Alvaro Munoz hit a triple of his own to start a 9-0 run as Ludwigsburg led 17-12. Another Timma trey evened the game at 17-17 but the hosts led 21-17 after 10 minutes. Cotton extended the advantage to 23-17 to start the second quarter. Aleksandar Karpukhin’s trey pulled Zenit to within 25-24 only to see O’Neale reel off 7 points to push the gap to 35-26. And Boone’s basket had Ludwigsburg up double digits for the first time at 39-28. Toolson’s free throw trimmed the deficit to 6 points but the hosts went into the locker room up 45-37 on an O’Neale putback of a Kerron Johnson missed free throw.

Trice opened the second half with a three-pointer and added another basket to push the hosts’ lead 52-37. Toolson finally got Zenit on the scoreboard with a three-ball after more than 2 minutes of play and he added 4 more points to trim the deficit to 52-44. Koshcheev tried to get Zenit back into the game with 5 points and Grigory Motovilov made it 62-53 but Cotton knocked down a three-pointer for the hosts, who were up 67-53 after 30 minutes. O’Neale continued his strong game with a three-ball to start the fourth quarter and open a 17-point advantage. Toolson and Pavel Antipov knocked down back-to-back long balls to get the deficit into single digits 70-61 with nearly 8 minutes left. Cotton however knocked down a triple and Trice scored 4 points as Ludwigsburg led 83-65 with 3 minutes left. And Zenit would not get closer than 13 points the rest of the game.