Olympiacos fend off Cedevita for first win

U18 Olympiacos Piraeus picked up its first victory in the Adidas Next Generation Tournament Belgrade by knocking off U18 Cedevita Zagreb 88-79 in Group A. Iosif Koloveros picked up 24 points and 6 assists in the win, which gave Olympiacos a 1-1 record in the group while Cedevita dropped to 1-1 and secured U18 Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade’s spot in the first-place game. Andreas Tsoumanis scored 14 points, Panagiotis Oikonomou 13 and Ilias Moraitis 11 points while Aleksej Pokusevski chipped in 9 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and 5 blocks. Cedevita was paced by Daniel Pavicic scoring 28 points while Renato Serdarusic had 18 points and 7 rebounds and Zvonimir Stunja contributed 10 points and 8 rebounds.

Pavicic scored 7 points early on in helping Cedevita open a 5-13 lead. Koloveros converted a three-point play and Moraitis nailed a three-pointer to pull Olympiacos within 11-15. But Cedevita closed the first quarter on a 4-13 run to lead 15-28. Olympiacos came out in the second quarter a different team with a 13-2 run to pull within 28-30. And a 10-2 spurt made it 38-32 with Olympiacos leading 42-57 at the break. Four points from Tsoumanis increased the lead to 48-39 and Olympiacos was up 53-42 midway through the third quarter. Cedevita fought back closer with six points from Serdarusic to make it 58-52 - with the score being 60-52 after 30 minutes. Two baskets from Oikonomou pushed the gap to 66-54. Cedevita got it down to nine points but Olympiacos pushed ahead 78-63 with 4 minutes left. Cedevita answered with nine straight points to pull within 78-72 but the Croatian side could not get closer the rest of the way.