U18 Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade opened the EUROLEAGUE BASKETBALL ADIDAS NEXT GENERATION TOURNAMENT Qualifying Tournament Marko Ivkovic Belgrade with a convincing 79-57 victory over U18 Porsche Basketball Academy Ludwigsburg in the first game in Group A. Aleksa Uskokovic collected 13 points, 4 rebounds and 6 assists for the six-time reigning ANGT Belgrade champ. Zoran Paunovic also hit for 13 points for Zvezda, which extended its winning streak in the Belgrade qualifiers to 28 games dating back to the 2010-11 event. Mateo paced Ludwigsburg with 17 points.

Dusan Bubanja scored the first basket of the tournament, putting back an offensive rebound for Zvezda. Two baskets from Vuk Djordjevic and a putback by Ranko Simovic had the host side up 11-6. Malik Kudic and Seric both knocked down three-pointers to get Ludwigsburg to within 13-12. But a 2-minute scoring drought had Zvezda up 19-12 and Arijan Lakic’s three-pointer pushed the lead to 22-15 after 10 minutes. Ludwigsburg failed to score the first two minutes of the second quarter and Paunovic made it 26-15. Seric’s inside score ended the scoreless rut but Uskokovic began taking over with a three-pointer and a long jumper and a Stefan Momirov triple helped increase the gap to 36-19. Seric ended a 4:54 minute scoreless stretch and Matthew Meredith converted a breakaway layup as the score was 36-23. Zvezda got a three-pointer from Lazar Zivanovic and the gap was 39-25 at the break. Zvezda pushed the advantage out to 18 points - 46-28. Seric converted a three-point play and knocked down a three-pointer to trim the gap to 46-37. But Simovic hit a three-ball and Lakic drained two triples and the margin was 58-42 after 30 minutes. Paunovic took over the scoring in the fourth with nine points as the lead was still 69-48 midway through the fourth quarter. Ludwigsburg tried to make things closer with Daniel Franz scoring and Kudic hitting a triple, but the game was already out of hand.