Maccabi Teddy Tel Aviv finished off its ADIDAS NEXT GENERATION TOURNAMENT in Rome by collecting its first victory, beating Virtus Bologna 101-76 to claim seventh place. Dragan Bender had a monster game with 43 points, 21 rebounds, six assists, five steals, two blocks for a PIR of 66. Amit Ebo added 15 points and Adam Salkind chipped in 12 points in the win. Bologna finished eighth without a victory despite Danilo Petrovic scoring 20 points, Andrea Betti hitting for 17 and Roberto Vercellino chipping in 11 points in the defeat. The game was back and forth throughout the first quarter as Maccabi went ahead first but there were four lead changes in the first quarter and seven ties. Bologna’s first lead was at 7-9 and both teams led by three points once in the quarter. Ebo nailed a three-pointer just before the buzzer to give Maccabi a 19-18 lead after 10 minutes. Bender scored six straight points to start the second quarter and push the lead to 25-18. Vercellino’s trey trimmed the deficit to 31-27, but Bender again was too strong, scoring nine points in a 13-4 surge for a 44-31 cushion. The advantage grew to 50-36 and was 50-38 at intermission with Bender having scored 21 points in the second quarter alone. Maccabi continued to dominate and increased the margin to 17 points at 59-42. Vercellino cut the gap to 62-51 midway through the third quarter, and a Petrovic triple made it 72-61. But Tel Aviv closed the third quarter with the final five points for a 77-61 lead. Bologna scored the first basket of the fourth but Maccabi tallied seven straight to make it 84-63, pushing the lead over 20 points for the first time. And Bologna would not get closer than 17 points the rest of the way.