Virtus rallies to edge Ulm

Segafredo Virtus Bologna rallied from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to edge visiting ratiopahrm Ulm 92-91 on Wednesday night. The win lifted Virtus's record to 5-1 and all but qualified it for the Top 16, while Ulm dropped to 1-5. The visitors led 67-77 with 6:30 left to go, but Virtus unleashed its offense and behind shots from Kyle Weems and Stefan Markovic turned things around and pulled out the victory. Weems paced Virtus with 16 points, while Milos Teodosic scored 15 with 8 assists. Vince Hunter added 14 points, Markovic had 12 points and 9 assists while Frank Gaines contributed with 11 in this victory. Grant Jerrett led Ulm with 20 points and Killian Hayes had 13 points and 6 assists. Andreas Obst also scored 13, Patrick Heckmann had 12 and Derek Willis collected 11 points plus 7 rebounds in a losing effort.

Ulm took the lead from the start with a 0-11 run, sparked with a dunk-plus-foul from Jerrett and followed by three-pointers from Willis to open a 3-13 margin. Obst also hit a three for the visitors before Teodosic got Virtus offense going with nifty assists and knocking down his first triple. Obst nailed a last-second triple to make it 18-26 after 10 minutes. Teodosic made a pair of three-pointers early in the second quarter and Stefan Markovic added another one to get his team within 29-34. A three from Giampaolo Ricci helped get Virtus to 34-37 and Gaines found his ways to score inside, but Ulm had a three-point play from Jerrett and a three-pointer from Heckmann that made it 37-46 and the visitors went into halftime up 42-50. Gaines kept his second-quarter momentum and had a basket-plus-foul and a three-pointer to tie the game at 52-52 after 4 minutes of the third quarter. Per Guenther fueled Ulm's 0-7 run, but Virtus replied by scoring the next 7 to tie it again. However, Guenther had a three-pointer late in the third, before Heckmann and Jerrett each had one early in the fourth for a 63-72 lead. A triple from Seth Hinrichs made it a 10-point game, 67-77. Virtus had no intentions of going away, putting together a 12-2 run in which Ricci and Weems had three-pointers. After Jerrett and Markovic traded three-pointers, Weems and Hayes exchanged long jumpers. With Ulm up 84-86, Markovic and Weems nailed back-to-back three-pointers to make it 90-86 with 28 seconds to go and the hosts managed to hang on.

Offense unleashed

Virtus struggled on offense at times during the game, but then scored 25 points in the final 5 minutes and 30 seconds, including 5 three-pointers on 6 attempts: One from Giampaolo Ricci that got the comeback started and 2 apiece from Stefan Markovic and Kyle Weems.

Serbs dishing it

Virtus's playmaking duo of Milos Teodosic and Stefan Markovic were responsible for 17 of their team's 24 assists. No other Virtus player had multiple assists in this game.

Ulm's offensive renaissance

In the first four rounds, Ulm did not score 80 points in any game, but then it dropped 103 against Maccabi Rishon LeZion in Round 5 and then 50 in the first half and 91 for the game on Wednesday. This time, Ulm did it without Zoran Dragic, who scored 33 points in the win against Rishon. Still, it was not enough against Virtus.

Next up

Next week in Round 7, Ulm will host MoraBanc Andorra (3-3) on Tuesday. Virtus travels to Israel to face Maccabi Rishon LeZion (1-5) on Wednesday.