U18 Olympiacos Piraeus picked up its second victory of the Euroleague Basketball ADIDAS NEXT GENERATION TOURNAMENT Munich with an 80-77 win over U18 Real Betis Energia Plus Seville and will play for third place. Andreas Tsoumanis collected 17 points, 14 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals for Olympiacos while Nikos Arsenopoulos added 16 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists. Olympiacos, which is playing in the ANGT for the first time since 2007, finished second in Group A with a 2-1 record. Betis finished in last place with an 0-3 record despite 14 points and 13 rebounds from Tomas Balciunas.
After Betis took an early 2-6 lead, Tsoumanis and Panagiotis Oikonomou combined for 10 points as Olympiacos went ahead for the first time 12-11. The lead switched hands five times and Olympiacos tallied the final 7 points of the first quarter to lead 25-20 after 10 minutes. Iosif Koloveros extended the run to 11-0 for a 29-20 advantage early in the second stanza. Betis charged back thanks to three-pointers from Stefan Vlahovic, Raul Postigo and Balciunas to even the game at 33-33. Aleksej Pokusevski hit 4 points at the other end in a 9-0 run as Olympiacos went up 42-33 and led 44-40 at intermission.
The game remained tight with Pokusevski picking up 5 points as Olympiacos stayed ahead 49-42. Sergio Cecilia had 4 points at the other end in getting Betis to within 51-48. And the Greek side was up 57-54 after 30 minutes. Tsoumanis scored 5 points in helping Olympiacos extend the gap to 64-57 only to see Balciunas hit two straight baskets and even the game at 67-67. Olympiacos, however, held its nerves down the stretch and hit 9 of 10 free throws in the final 1:35 minutes to get the win.
Saturday, February 10, 2018
David Hein, Euroleague.net