U18 Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade stayed alive for the Euroleague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament Championship Game by beating U18 FC Bayern Munich 63-72 for its first victory in Group B of the ANGT Finals. Lazar Vasic led the way with 15 points and Bojan Tomasevic and Nemanja Popovic both had 14 points as the 2014 continental champion improved to 1-1 in the group. Arijan Lakic chipped in 6 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 steals and 3 blocks. Bayern, which is making its debut in the competition, is still looking for its first win with an 0-2 record despite Sasha Grant scoring 18 points and Jim Gietz and Kilian Binapfl both picking up 10 points.

Neither team scored in the first two minutes until Julius Dueh’s free throw. Binapfl scored 4 points as Bayern opened a 7-1 lead. Zvezda did not hit a basket until the 5:02 minute mark of the first quarter by Luka Jovanovic before Grant’s three-pointer made it 10-3. Zvezda trimmed the gap to two points but Bayern was up 16-12 after 10 minutes. Zvezda nosed ahead 16-18 early in the second quarter before three-pointers by Bruno Vrcic and Gietz had Bayern up 22-20. The Belgrade team answered with a 2-15 run with Zoran Paunovic and Popovic both scoring four points to go up 24-35. But Jeremia Agyepong hit a jumper at the half-time buzzer to make it 26-35 at the break.

Zvezda worked the lead out to 29-41 before Grant hit two three-pointers to pull Bayern within 36-41. Zvezda called a time-out and tightened up its defense, keeping Bayern scoreless for nearly three minutes in pushing the gap to 36-50. But the debutant played some defense of its own to close the quarter, holding Zvezda without a point for 2:27 minutes and hitting the final seven points to make it 43-50 after 30 minutes. A Vasic three-ball had Zvezda up 47-57, but Bayern would not go away as it got the deficit down to 52-57 and then 58-62. Zvezda however punched back with a 0-7 spurt to re-establish a double-digit lead and lock up the win.