ASVEL wins thriller over Gran Canaria

U18 LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne started its Euroleague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament Valencia campaign with a thrilling 91-93 victory over.U18 Herbalife Gran Canaria. Daryl Doualla scored 27 points for ASVEL and Matthew Strazel collected 25 points – including 11-of-16 free throws – to go with 5 rebounds, 8 assists, 7 steals and 14 fouls drawn as well as the game-winning three-point play with 27 seconds left in the Group B game. Kymany Houinsou chipped in 16 points, 9 rebounds and 2 blocks in the victory. Gran Canaria lost despite 35 points, 13 rebounds, 2 assists and 4 steals from Ruben Lopez while Jean Montero had 22 points and Gerardo Perez scored 15 points.

Khalifa Diop scored 4 points in the opening minutes as Gran Canaria led 6-4. Strazel started his output with 7 points in an 0-15 ASVEL run to go ahead 6-19 and the advantage was 8-23 until Lopez tallied the final 5 points of the first quarter and it was 14-23. Perez opened the second period with a three-pointer and Montero had 5 points in a 12-2 spurt to put Gran Canaria up 28-25. Perez added 5 more points and Pedro Lopez-Sanvicente’s three-pointer made it 42-32. ASVEL put together a 2-8 spurt and trailed just 48-44 at the intermission. A Perez three-ball helped Gran Canaria increase the lead to 55-48. Houinsou trimmed it to 57-55 only to see two Lopez three-point plays get the margin to 70-59. ASVEL finished the quarter with the final 5 points to trail 70-64. The French side opened the fourth quarter on a 3-8 spurt with Doualla scoring 6 points to make it 73-72. Montero and Lopez helped keep ahead 79-72 and 87-79. ASVEL would not go down without a fight with Cedrick Sam Mbaka and Houinson hitting three-pointers, followed by a three-point play and 2 free throws by Strazel to make it 91-90 with 67 seconds left. After forcing a 24-second violation, ASVEL went ahead 91-93 on Strazel’s layup-and-one with 27 seconds to play. Lopez missed a turnaround jumper at the other end and Elijah Hoard was fouled with 0.6 seconds left, missing the second on purpose to ice the victory.