Skyliners through to Top 16 in a thriller!

Fraport Frankfort Skyliners celebrated their 7DAYS EuroCup debut by qualifying for the Top 16 early thanks to a thrilling 65-63 comeback home win over Rytas Vilnius on Wednesday in Group D. Skyliners upped their record to 6-3 and held onto third place in the group. Rytas dropped to 4-4 in fourth place. Undersized due to injuries, Skyliners fell behind by 17 points early in the second quarter, but came all the way back and used a five-minute spell of stopping Rytas cold in the fourth quarter to survive. Trae Bell-Haynes and Jason Clark led the winners with 14 points each, while Quantez Robertson had 12 and 9 rebounds. Eimantas Bendzius had 14 points and forged a late 63-63 tie for Rytas, while Mindaugas Girdziunas followed him with 13 points.

Martynas Echodas pushed Rytas ahead early and Girdziunas made it 9-14 from downtown. The visitors held on 13-16 after one quarter, but their best was yet to come. Rytas blew up with a 0-14 run to open the second quarter as Bendzius had 5 of those points and the visitors jumped ahead 13-30. Skyliners responded with 9 unanswered points to get within 22-30 before Rytas got its defense back in order and restored a 26-35 halftime lead. Skyliners started getting more and more scoring from the perimeter as Bell-Haynes got hot and Clark followed him until splashing in a go-ahead triple at 44-43 on the way to a 47-47 scoreboard after 30 minutes. Points kept coming hard early in the fourth, but Brady Heslip's 5 in a row gave Skyliners an edge. When he returned for another triple, Skyliners were up 57-49 after holding Rytas to 2 points in 5 minutes, but the visitors soon were back within 57-55 on a triple by Bendzius. After Murphy copied him, Bendzius would come back to nail another triple to make it 62-60 in the final minute. Clark's first missed free throw of the season meant a 63-60 score with 40 seconds left, then Bendzius did it again from deep, forging a 63-63 tie. Bell-Haynes got to the free throw line and buried both shots with 3.6 seconds left before a layup try by Evaldas Kairys missed, sending Skyliners to the Top 16.

Turning point

Rytas erupted for the first 14 points of the second quarter to take the game's biggest lead, 13-30. Skyliners had to steady themselves then and returned from a timeout to score the next 9 points, 7 of them by Bell-Haynes. That started a 31-13 run bridging halftime until the Skyliners finally re-took a lead at 44-43.

Nice start

Leon Kratzer, signed by Skyliners on Tuesday, had only a foul to show for his trouble by the time he entered the game again in the middle of that key second quarter. This time, he made a steal and a tip-in within a minute, helping a 9-0 Skyliners run and marking himself as a hustler in his EuroCup debut. He finished with 4 rebounds and 2 steals as Skyliners outrebounded their bigger guests by 31 to 23, although the littlest man on the floor, Quantez Robertson, was the key to that effort with a game-high 9 boards.

Flipping the script

After scoring just 13 points in each of the first two quarters and trailing 26-35 at halftime, Skyliners turned the defensive tables on their guests. Rytas scored only 28 after the break, but the key for Skyliners was a five-minute stretch holding the visitors to just 2 points after the entered the fourth quarter tied 47-47. The visitors did not lead again.

Next round

Skyliners visit Mornar Bar when 7DAYS EuroCup action returns in Round 9 on December 11. Rytas also hits the road, to play eliminated Fiat Turin.