U18 Spars Ziraat Bank Sarajevo collected seventh place at Euroleague Basketball ADIDAS NEXT GENERATION TOURNAMENT Belgrade by beating U18 Cibona Zagreb 89-68. Tarik Biberovic scored 26 points with 12 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals and Kenan Kamenjas had 12 points, 11 rebounds, 4 steals and 3 blocks for Spars, which picked up its first victory of the competition. Cibona finished winless at 0-4 despite Danko Brankovic picking up 19 points, 10 rebounds and 6 blocks and Luka Cvitanovic scoring 18 points with 5 assists.

Brankovic scored 4 points in the early going as Cibona went ahead 3-8 and was up 5-12. Edo Preldzic hit a three-pointer and Biberovic scored 5 points as Spars fought back to tie the game 16-16. A three-pointer from Vojin Ilic gave the Sarajevo team a 19-18 lead after 10 minutes. Biberovic came up with 9 points including a pair of steals and breakaway dunks as the advantage grew to 36-23. Spars, which gave up double-digit leads in losing the last two games against U18 Anadolu Efes Istanbul and U18 Umana Reyer Venice, watched as Cvitanovic scored 4 points to cut it to 37-32. But Spars pulled back away to 44-33 on another Preldzic three and led 44-37 at the intermission.

Cvitanovic’s basket trimmed the deficit to 47-41 early in the second half, but Semir Karic scored 4 points in a 10-0 spurt to put Spars up 57-41. A Biberovic three pushed the advantage to 18 points. After 30 minutes Spars led 68-51. Ilic scored the first 5 points of the fourth quarter as Spars made sure there would not be a Cibona comeback, leading 73-51. The Sarajevo club increased the gap to 82-56 and Cibona did not get closer than 21 points the rest of the way.