Seven-time reigning champion U18 Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade booked its second victory in two games at the Euroleague Basketball ADIDAS NEXT GENERATION TOURNAMENT Belgrade with a 50-86 blowout of U18 Umana Reyer Venice. Zoran Paunovic led the 2014 U18 continental champion with 28 points and 5 rebounds while Lazar Zivanovic picked up 18 points. Zvezda, which has now won 33 straight games in qualifying tournaments, improved to 2-0 in Group A while Venice dropped to 0-2. Federico Miaschi paced Venice with 21 points.

Zvezda scored the first 9 points of the game - eight of them by Paunovic. Venice finally scored on a Miashchi three-point play after more than 2 minutes. Venice was as close as 8-13 but then Paunovic scored four more points in a 5-11 spurt for a 13-24 lead, which was 15-26 after 10 minutes. Venice was trying to stay close with three reserves scoring baskets in trailing 27-38. But Zvezda held Venice scoreless for the final 5:19 minutes of the first half and Paunovic tallied 4 more points for a 27-48 lead at the break.

Venice really could not make a dent in the deficit after the break with Mattia Favaretto’s three-ball making it 32-54. And it was 38-63 after three quarters. Venice started the fourth quarter with an 8-2 spurt but Zivanovic took over and Zvevzda finished the game on a 4-21 run.