U18 Promitheas Patras came up with a magical debut in the Euroleague Basketball ADIDAS NEXT GENERATION TOURNAMENT Ciutat de L’Hospitalet by upsetting U18 Unicaja Malaga 63-71 in the first game in Group B. Panagiotis Gkatzios led the way for the Greek club with 22 points and 13 rebounds while Chrysostomos Sandramanis chipped in 10 points and Aristotelis Sotiriou had 8 points and 9 rebounds. Unicaja, which made just 1-of-16 three-pointers (6 percent), got 24 points and 19 rebounds from Morgan Stilma and Jesus Carralero added 15 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists in the defeat.

Promitheas held Unicaja scoreless for the first 4 minutes of the game and led 0-4. Unicaja took its first lead at 8-7 but a three-pointer by Gkatzios had the newcomers up 13-15 after 10 minutes. Promitheas remained concentrated on offense and tough on defense and Eleftherios Mantzoukas and Sandramanis nailed back-to-back three-pointers to push the advantage to 19-31. Unicaja scored the final 8 points of the half and trailed 29-33 at intermission. Unicaja went ahead 36-35 but Gzatzios tallied 6 points in a 2-14 Promitheas surge for a 38-49 lead. Unicaja was able to cut the margin to 45-51 after three quarters. Promitheas was not ready to break as Dimitrios Karaiskos made two baskets to increase the lead back to 10 points 47-57. Stilma tried his best to get Unicaja back into the game with 7 points and Jose Luiz Ibanez made it 58-61. But Sandramanis and Gkatzios both nailed a three-pointers and Gkatzios and Dimitrios Ermeidis both hit two free throws in the final 1:22 minutes to close out the victory.