Zenit holds off visiting Bayern

Zenit St. Petersburg made a winning start to its 7DAYS EuroCup campaign, holding off the visiting FC Bayern Munich 80-77 in the opening game of Group C on Wednesday. Zenit had a strong start to the game, but Bayern caught up by the end of the third quarter, and the game went down to the wire where Zenit prevailed. Janis Timmas paced the winners with 20 points, Sergey Karasev netted 16, while Aaron White collected 13 points and 7 rebounds. Kyle Landry scored 10 points, while Stefan Markovic dished 10 assists. Bayern’s Devin Booker had a monster night with 27 points on 13-for17 two-point shooting, 8 rebounds and 5 assists. Danilo Barthel scored 12, while Reggie Reddin had 11 points and 5 assists.

Zenit rolled out of the gate, hitting five triples in the first six minutes of the game, with White, Pavel Sergeev, Timma, Karasev and Landry each hitting one for 18-4 lead. Bayern stopped the bleeding through Bryce Taylor and Booker, but Zenit still had 24-12 after 10 minutes, before opening a 16-point margin in the second quarter. Ondrej Balvin had a three-point play, and Alex King hit Bayern’s only triple in the first half, capping a 5-12 run to get Bayern’s deficit in the single digits, but the hosts still went into halftime up 47-37. After the break, Barthel and Redding combined to score all Bayern’s points in an 8-19 run that gave Bayern its first lead, 59-60. Timma and Markovic led another Zenit’s charge, a 10-2 run spanning third and fourth quarters, but Booker did not allow the visitors to fall into a deeper hole, and Alex Renfroe’s triple put Bayern up once again, 74-75 with 3:38 left. But Zenit kept Bayern scoreless for the next 3 minutes, while White and Landry made foul shots to put the hosts in front. Max Kleber and Redding missed three-pointers in the final 10 seconds that would have sent the game into overtime.