Barking Academy won its first game in the Barking Abbey Academy Euroleague Basketball Junior Classification Tournament after a great debut performance leading to an 86-64 win over KK Zadar on the second game in Group A on Thursday morning in London, England. The winner of the tournament will earn the last ticket off the four qualifying competitions to the Nike International Junior Tournament that will take place in Paris, France during the 2010 Euroleague Final Four. The hosts of the tournament used a great second half run to take over the game and hold an important 22 point difference at the buzzer. Josh Johnson led the Academy with 27 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists to reach an index rating of 41. Teddy Okereafor added 18 while Dami Makinde with 13 and Simeon Esprit scored 11. In Zadar Emilio Banic had 15 points with 8 rebounds followed by Donat Milin and Franko Sango with 10 points each.

Raphell Thomas-Edwards led the Academy to an 8-0 lead after 2 minutes, but Milin took over the game for Zadar and soon the scoreboard displayed just a 16-14 lead for the hosting side. Makinde scored from the arc to make it a 23-14 game, but Zadar used Joseip Micic's handle to score 11 points in a row and take the lead for the first time in the game. Okereafor stepped up with 7 quick points to lead a 14-3 run and put the Academy on top again, this time with a safe 37-30 lead at the break. After scoring only 9 points in the first half Johnson found the time to step up, and after 4 minutes in the second half already reached 16 with by attacking the rim again and again. Okereafor hit a jumper to set the distance on 51-38 while Zadar had no answers to the energy and athleticism of the Academy, as the gap reached 61-44 at the bottom of the third quarter. Zadar never managed to cut the margin to a single-digit in the closing quarter, while Okereafor and Johnson collected points crossing the 20 point barrier in the last minutes.