Valencia downs Nanterre for seventh place

Host side U18 Valencia Basket finished in seventh place at the Euroleague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament Valencia after collecting an 80-88 victory over U18 Nanterre 92. Ivan Aleksandrov led the way with 22 points for Valencia, which won its first game of the tournament. Hugo Gomez and Sergio De Larrea both chipped in 15 points, Hector Marco had 14 points and Andreu Saez added 11 points and 11 rebounds. Daniel Ngufor paced Nanterre with 20 points, Marc-Antoine Loemba picked up 19 points and Maxime Raynaud tallied 14 points and 18 rebounds in the loss.

Mateo Donnadieu and Nathan Zulemie both hit three-pointers as Nanterre jumped ahead 8-0. Gomez scored six points at the other end in Valencia’s 2-10 run to knot the game. Ngufor’s triple made it 21-14 but Nanterre went scoreless for the final 3 minutes of the first quarter and Saez had six points in a 0-12 run as Valencia led 21-26 after 10 minutes. Ngufor tallied five points to help Nanterre even the game again at 33-33 and it was close the rest of the quarter and the teams went into intermission tied 42-42.

De Larrea scored the first five points of the second half while Loemba had seven points as Nanterre evened the game again at 51-51. Ngufor added seven points for Nanterre and Lucas Mari had seven for Valencia over the rest of the quarter, which ended with Valencia up 64-66. Donnadieu picked up five points for the French side for a 73-68 cushion but Aleksandrov nailed two three-pointers in a 1-12 surge for a 74-80 lead with under 3 minutes left. Zulemie and Loemba punched back with three-point plays to tie the game 80-80. Saez split two free throws and after a Nanterre turnover Marco scored on a putback for a three-point lead. Nanterre missed two three-pointers and Gomez downed two free throws with 37 seconds to ice the game 80-85.