Spartak St. Petersburg advanced to the Last 16 on Tuesday night thanks to a convincing road win at FC Bayern Munich, 60-72. With a perfect record in Group G that improved to 4-0 with this win, Spartak is in the next round while Bayern drops to 1-3 and will have to wait for the next two games in order to qualify. Spartak dominated in the first half, but the hosts managed to come close during the third period. However, a starting 0-12 into the last quarter killed all options for Bayern and boosted Spartak into the Last 16. Victor Keyru and Loukas Mavrokefalides led the winners with 13 points each, while Yotam Halperin and Valery Likhodey had 10 apiece. For Bayern, Chevon Troutman had 15 points, Ben Hansbrough added 13 and Jared Homan posted 12.
Despite Chevon Troutman's opening basket, Spartak reacted with a 0-7 burst capped by Yotam Halperin's three and Vladimir Dragivecic's layup. The defense of
the guests was well positioned at this point and Halperin kept punishing the basket of the hosts. The run of the guests continued with a good Loukas
Mavrokefalides who helped the score climb to 4-15. Robin Benzing sank free throws for Bayern, but Spartak meant business as Valery Likhodey's three-point
play made it 6-20. A late 4-0 run for Bayern in the last plays of the first quarter made it 10-20 after 10 minutes. The second quarter started as the first
had evolved, with Spartak dominating. Bayern's 0 of 5 from the arc and its 9 turnovers in minute 13 were a big burden for the hosts, well used by the guests
to jump to 14-29 after Patrick Beverley's bucket. A 6-0 seemed to give some life back to Bayern and soon enough Chevon cut the deficit down to single digits
again, 25-34. However, Victor Keyru had enough time to bury a bucket and then Ben Hansbrough had the last word for the 28-39 Spartak edge at halftime.
Defenses kept going strong at the start of the second half, but Spartak kept the upper hand. A quick three by Halperin and a new bucket by Mavrokefalides
made it 30-44. Luckily for the hosts, Troutman was still active in offense and that managed to spark a 19-4 partial run for Bayern that put them back into
the game. Hansbrough joined the party ast back-to-back threes by him helped make it 49-48, putting Bayern ahead for the first time. Miha Zupan came to the
rescue for the guests with five straight points of his own to make it 49-53 entering the last minute of three and Aleksey Zozulin added a three of his own to
put Spartak out of reach for the time being, 49-56 after 30 minutes. Points came in scarce in the first minutes of the last period, but unluckily for Bayern,
the first all fell on Spartak's side with a 0-5 for 49-61 after Likhodey's bucket in the first three minutes of the period. Bayern simply was shut down by the guests and the run climbed to 0-12 in the first 5 minutes of the period to make it 49-68 for Spartak. Jared Homan finally scored for Bayern with a three-point play with less than 4 minutes to go in the game and Philipp Schwethelm added two free throws to extend the run but it was already too late for Bayern in this game, as Spartak celebrated passage into the Last 16.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Eurocupbasketball.com