Spars Sarajevo won for the first time at the ADIDAS NEXT GENERATION TOURNAMENT competition by beating Zalgiris Kaunas 69-60. Spars jumped ahead by 15 points in the first quarter and never looked back in its Group B opener. Edin Atic paced Spars with 22 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists and 5 steals while Amar Gegic picked up 11 points, 5 assists and 2 steals. Emir Ahmedic collected 14 points, 10 rebounds and 2 steals for the winning team. Two-time tournament champion Zalgiris dropped to 0-1 in Group B despite 11 points from Martynas Echodas and 10 from Laurynas Birutis, while Gytis Masiulis added 11 points and 13 rebounds in the loss.

Spars jumped ahead 0-6 and Zalgiris went scoreless for the first two minutes. After finally getting on the board, the Lithuanian club failed to score for four more minutes and Atic sandwiched two three-pointers around a Fahrudin Manjgafic dunk as the Bosnian club was up 2-17. The margin increased to 18 points on Darko Bajo’s score to make it 4-22. The advantage was 6-24 after 10 minutes. Laurynas Beliauskas opened the second quarter with a three-pointer but Spars refused to let up and Ahmedic’s three-point play gave the Bosnian club an 11-31 cushion. Kaunas tried to fight back into the game but could not really cut into the deficit, getting only to within 18-35. Atic actually pushed Spars even further ahead, leading 22-43 before Arnas Velicka nailed in a three-ball just before the buzzer as Zalgiris trailed 25-43 at intermission.

Kaunas scored the first six points of the second half to get the deficit down to 31-43. And an Arnoldas Kulboka free throw trimmed it to 34-45. But the Zalgiris offense sputtered, going scoreless for nearly three minutes as Spars pulled ahead 38-55. Kaunas were able to make it 43-56 on a Birutis hook shot just before the third quarter buzzer. Zalgiris tried to get into the game and the margin was 50-62 after a Kulboka three-pointer with six minutes to play. Zalgiris cut the deficit to nine points in the final minute.