Brose Baskets Bamberg evened its record in Group A in the ADIDAS NEXT GENERATION TOURNAMENT by coming back from a 16-point third quarter deficit in a 65-70 victory over Cedevita Zagreb. Tibor Taras scored 26 points while Leon Kratzer collected 18 points, 14 rebounds, three steals and one block, Moritz Sanders had 12 points and Daniel Keppeler chipped in nine points and nine rebounds. Bamberg lost its first game in Group A to Stellazzurra Basketball Academy and moved to 1-1. Cedevita, which beat Maccabi Teddy Tel Aviv in its first game, dropped to 1-1. Bruno Solomun scored 16 points for Cedevita, Lovro Mazalin had 13 points, four rebounds, five assists and three steals and Toni Perkovic added 11 points in the loss.

Cedevita went ahead 3-0 before Bamberg led 5-8. After two lead changes, Zagreb used a 12-2 run to move up 21-12. Zagreb led 23-14 and was still up 23-16 after 10 minutes. Cedevita opened the second quarter with a 10-1 run for a 33-17 lead. Brose fought back to trim the gap to 35-28 before Zagreb scored the final seven points for a 42-28 advantage at intermission.

Cedevita scored the first two points to open the second half and re-establish a 16-point lead. Then Keppeler, Taras and Sanders each scored seven points in a 3-24 surge by Bamberg to grab a 47-52 cushion, which was 51-54 after three quarters. Bamberg did a good job keeping Cedevita at bay early in the fourth quarter and looked to have the game sealed up Kratzer’s dunk with 1:35 minutes to play and a 57-65 lead. But it was a one-point game with 25 seconds as Perkovic nailed a three-ball to make it 65-66. Marc Nunz and Taras finished off the win by both hitting two free throws in the final 15 seconds.