U18 Lietuvos Rytas Vilnius will face off against reigning champion U18 Zalgiris Kaunas in an all-Lithuanian final of the Euroleague Basketball ADIDAS NEXT GENERATION TOURNAMENT Qualifying Tournament – Kaunas after beating U18 VEF Riga 64-83. Grantas Vasiliauskas collected 25 points and 9 rebounds while Matas Jogela scored 15 points. Karolis Giedraitis added 13 points and Aistis Pilauskas chipped in 12 points and 7 assists for the 2012 continent champion Rytas, which claimed first place in Group B with a perfect 3-0 record. VEF needed a win by 13 points in order to reach its third straight final. But 16 points and 8 rebounds from Karlis Garoza and 12 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists from Nikolajs Zotovs were not enough as VEF dropped to 1-2 and third place in the group. Niks Jansons added 11 points in the loss.

Pilauskas opened the game for Rytas while Garoza scored at the other end for VEF. After Vasilauskas’s basket made it 4-8, Jansons knocked down a three-ball for the Latvian side to cut it to 7-8. Rytas kept VEF scoreless for more than 3 minutes and Vasilauskas tallied 6 points in a 0-10 run for a 7-18 lead. Leonards Miglinieks ended the drought but Vasilauskas hit back from long range and Pilauskas’s long ball had Rytas ahead 10-25 after 10 minutes. Lukas Kisunas put back a miss and made it 10-27 to start the second quarter. Garoza helped VEF stay close with 4 points to close the deficit to 17-29. Vasilauskas came back down with a three-ball while Giedraitis and Jogela followed with long balls of their own as the advantage grew to 24-40. VEF did not lay down and got back into the game with an 11-0 surge to make it 35-40. Giedraitis stopped the run with a three-ball and his next basket pushed the lead to 35-47. The gap was 37-47 at intermission.

Toms Upe, Karlis Grigaluns, Jansons and Zotovs all knocked down three-pointers as VEF came out of the locker room on fire and trailed just 49-50. Jogela scored at the other end and then VEF became just as cold as it had been hot, missing 11 of its next 12 shots and turning it over 3 times in falling behind 53-65 with Rytas’ 4-15 run. VEF did score the final three points of the quarter but still trailed 56-65 after 30 minutes. Roberts Dembskis opened the fourth quarter and cut the margin down to 58-65 but VEF went scoreless for almost the next 3 minutes and Jogela’s basket increased the lead to 58-69. Armands Berkis was able to get the deficit to 62-69 but Rytas finished with a 2-14 run.