Into the Final Stretch, Cappie & UMMC Welcome CP3 … uhh, make that CP13

Jan 14, 2010 - 2009-10 EuroLeague Results & Standings

This is the time of year when teams pick up players and solidify their rosters for a run to the Final Four. Last week Sue Bird and Tina Thompson got back into the game and this week Candace Parker played in her first EuroLeague contest. Since #3 is not a legal jersey number, CP added a digit and is wearing #13 for UMMC. She joined fellow USA Basketball National Team member Cappie Pondexter in Ekaterinburg, Russia, and contributed eight points, 10 rebounds and a pair of assists in 20 minutes of play (see game summary below). Parker brought her daughter, eight-month-old Lailaa Williams, along to Ekaterinburg. Her mom is also in Russia to help with Lailaa while Parker is helping UMMC try for a EuroLeague title.

-CP definitely brings international experience, winning mentality as well as versatility," commented Pondexter on her team's new addition. -We are excited to have her join our family and look forward to an awesome year. It's always fun to have a babe around the team. We will get to see Lailaa grow up for the next five months, so that should be exciting as well."

Vote Now for the 2010 EuroLeague All-Star Game!
The voting booth is now open for the 2010 EuroLeague All-Star Game and it's not only legal, but expected that people will vote more than once. But you're only allowed to vote only once per day (per computer), so make sure you start each day with a vote for one of the following USA National Team members or USA National Team hopefuls for inclusing on the 2010 Rest of the World Team! VOTE NOW!!! And Vote Daily to see your favorite players in the March 9 contest!

Watch Games Online!
Don't forget that you can watch games live online. Check it out!
http://www.livescorehunter.com/Livescores/Livescore-Basketball.html

Tough Contests
You know it's getting down and dirty time when blowouts aren't as commonplace as they've been in weeks past. Out of the 12 games played this week, six were decided by five points or less. No, we're not going to go back and count up the close games from week to week just to prove a point. However, we don't recall having to read the play-by-play's final minutes for so many games as we have this week!

Tina Thompson, Targoviste Advance To Next Eurocup Round
After a 13-point, 14-rebound performance in Game 1 against Ruzomberok (90-68), Tina Thompson helped her new team, Municipal Targoviste, to a second victory over Ruzomberok, 84-51, for the right to advance to the Eurocup quarterfinals. Thompson tied for game-high scoring honors with 23 points after shooting 10-of-14 from 2-point, and also grabbed seven rebounds. Next up for Targoviste in the best-of-two quarterfinals is Gran Canaria, which is 7-1 on the season and features American Morgan Warburton, a former Utah Ute, as its leading scorer (18.3 ppg.). Games will be played Jan. 28 and Feb. 4.

Counting Up the Stats
For the ninth week in a row, Diana Taurasi has retained the title of EuroLeague leading scorer. She's averaging 23.4 points a game and in only one game this year has she fallen short of 20 points. Taurasi also ranks sixth in free throw percentage (86.5%) and 20th in assists (3.3 apg.). Rounding out the top five are Angel McCoughtry (21.7 ppg.), Candice Dupree (20.0 ppg.), Crystal Langhorne (18.0 ppg.) and Renee Montgomery (17.6 ppg.). Janel Burse is still cruising along as the league's top rebounder with an 11.6 rebound per game average. She's trailed by Sancho little (10.4 rpg.), Dupree (10.4 rpg.), Milka Bjelica (9.5 rpg.) and Langhorne (8.7 rpg.). The assists have not been dominated this year by Americans, but Cappie Pondexter (4.8 apg.) currently tops the list of USA players and is ranked No. 5.

Group A
With one week remaining on the EuroLeague schedule, the four teams from Group A have been decided. The top two teams, UMMC Ekaterinburg (8-1) and Ros Casares Valencia (7-2) will likely advance as the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds, respectively. UMMC faces TTT Riga (2-7) next week, thus their first place finish looks pretty solid and Ros can't fall past second, even with a loss against Galatasaray (4-5), its final opponent. Cras Basket Taranto (5-4) owns a slim lead over Gala and should retain its No. 3 slot as it's facing last-place TEO Vilnius (1-8) in next week's final showdown. While anything can happen, look for UMMC to advance as the No. 1 seed, followed by Ros, Cras and Gala, in that order.

UMMC Ekaterinburg 69, Galatasaray 64
Gala nearly knocked off the visiting UMMC Ekaterinburg, but USA Basketball veteran Cappie Pondexter iced the victory with 3-of-4 from the line in the final 20 seconds.

Heading into the fourth quarter, the game was knotted at 52-all. Gala struck first with a three to go up 55-52. Ekaterinburg went on a 9-0 run to regain the lead, 61-55, with the help of a bucket from newly-arrived Candace Parker and a pair of assists from Pondexter. Gala wouldn't go away and with 2:04 to play Ekaterinburg's lead was 64-60. Pondexter was sent to the line with 1:28 left and sunk both her tries to give UMMC some breathing room. However, the hosts hit back-to-back buckets and with 30 seconds remaining, it was a two-point game, 66-64. Ekaterinburg called for time to regroup and set up a play for Pondexter. While she wasn't able to get to the basket, she did draw a foul and swished in both shots with 20 seconds left for a four-point lead, 68-64. After Gala missed on the other end, Pondexter was fouled on the rebound and made one of two to put the game away.

-The last timeout coach drew up a play where I was isolating to create something to the basket," said Pondexter, who scored a team-high 20 points against her former Fenerbache head coach. -He stressed that we needed to score and get one more stop to seal the game out. Which we were able to do.

-Gala played hard and executed their game plan from beginning to end," added Pondexter.

In addition to her 20 points, Pondexter dished out five assists; UMMC newcomer Candace Parker contributed eight points, 10 rebounds and two assists; while Poland's Biba scored 16 points and grabbed five boards. Former Texas Tech standout and USA U20 National Team member Jia Perkins finished with a game-high 23 points for Galatasaray to go with seven rebounds and three assists.

Ros Casares Valencia 87, Cras Basket Taranto 59
Ros, which fell to Cras Basket Taranto 78-69 earlier in the season, did not want history to repeat itself. Jumping out to a 26-11 lead early in the second quarter, it seemed as if Ros had the game in hand. However, the visiting Italians figured otherwise and took off on a 16-1 tear to tie up the game 27-27 with less than four minutes to play before halftime. Australia's Belinda Snell hit a 3-pointer to break a 29-29 tie, kicking off a 10-2 run and Ros headed to the locker room with a 39-31 lead. Ros continued to pull away in the third quarter, outscoring the visitors 28-13 over the 10-minute span to go up 67-44 with one period to play. The hosts cruised through the fourth quarter and came away with the 87-59 win.

Playing in her fourth game for Ros after sitting out the early season on the IR list, Spain's veteran national team player and former WNBA champ with the Houston Comets Amaya Valdemoro had her best game back with 20 points, four rebounds, six assists and three steals in 28 minutes of action. Two-time Olympic gold medalist DeLisha Milton-Jones followed with 16 points, five boards and three assists; Snell finished with 12 points and four assists and Spain's Anna Montanana chipped in 10 points. Former USA National Team member Rebekkah Brunson tied as her side's top scorer with 12 points, while also grabbing a team-high eight rebounds.

TTT Riga 59, TEO Vilnius 57
In a game that went down to the wire, TTT Riga outscored TEO Vilnius 5-2 in the final minute to pull out a close 59-57 victory in front of its hometown fans. Trailing by two points, TEO's Lindsey Harding connected on a traditional 3-point play to give her side a 55-54 lead with 2:10 to play. However, Quanitra Hollingsworth was whistled for two fouls at 1:08 " a personal, followed by a technical " her fourth and fifth of the game. Kristine Karklina stepped to the line first and made both of hers. Lisa Willis followed, but missed to leave TTT Riga with a 56-55 edge. However, because of the tech, the home team got the ball back and Karklina quickly converted on an assist by Willis and TTT Riga held a 58-55 lead with 56 ticks on the clock. Harding missed a game-tying 3-pointerwith 30 seconds left and from there TEO was forced to foul. Riga got its final point from the line with 10 seconds to go and virtually sealed the win after grabbing the offensive board from the second free throw. Harding got a steal, passed the ball to her teammate Milda Sauliute for a layup, but time expired on TEO's comeback effort.

Karklina led TTT Riga with 23 points and Willis added 17. TEO Vilnius received 16 points and 14 rebounds from Serbian Milka Bjelica, Hollingsworth scored 14 and Harding had 10 points, six boards and four assists.

Group B
The top three teams in Group B are in a race to the finish. After a stunning upset to Beretta-Famila (7-2), Wisla Can-Pack (8-1) needs to defeat Gospic Croatia (1-8) next week if it doesn't want to have to worry about tie-breakers. Since the two teams have palindromic records, that shouldn't be an issue. However, with the squad from Schio coming up with the win today, next week's showdown between Beretta-Famila and Halcon Avenida Salamanca (7-2) will determine who advances as the No. 2 seed and which team falls to the No. 3 slot. Guaranteed advancement, albeit in fourth place, is MiZo Pecs 2010 (3-6), while Gospic Croatia (1-8) and ESB Lille Metropole (1-8) will begin to concentrate on their domestic leagues.

Halcon Avenida Salamanca 97, ESB Lille Metropole 72
Halcon Avenida put up the game's first four points, jumped to a 10-point lead in the first five minutes and never looked back en route to a dominating 97-72 performance over its host, ESB Lille Metropole. Last year's EuroLeague runners-up earned the win with a balanced effort that produced five double-digit scorers. Belgium national Anke de Mondt was the game's high scorer with 24 points for Avenida. Lady Comfort scored 16 points to lead five Lille players in double digits and Jolene Anderson, the French side's other American, shot just 3-of-7 for six points.

MiZo Pecs 2010 90, Gospic Croatia 78
It took most of the game to pull away, but MiZo Pecs 2010 gave its fans something to cheer about with a 12-point, 90-78, victory over Gospic Croatia. Owning a 22-17 lead after the first quarter, MiZo's lead was still five points at the game's midway break. While MiZo never trailed in the second half, Gospic kept things interesting, cutting the gap to a single point, 56-55, with 3:28 to go in the third period. Kelly Mazzante responded for MiZo with a 3-pointer to spur an 11-5 run to close the quarter with a 67-60 lead. Gospic pulled as close as five points with fewer than four minutes to play, but was unable to overcome the deficit. Former USA National Team member Nicole Ohlde was the game's top scorer with 23 points to go with nine rebounds and three assists for MiZo, while Mazzante finished with 17 points and Allie Quigley scored 16. Croatian Jelena Ivezic scored a team-best 22 points and Carla Thomas added 16 for Gospic.

Beretta-Famila Schio 92, Wisla Can-Pack 88
In a game that went down to the wire, Beretta-Famila Schio hit all six of its final free throw attempts and handed Wisla Can-Pack its first defeat in EruoLeague play, 92-88, in Italy. The game was close throughout and heading into the final stanza the game was even at 68-apiece. With the score knotted at 74-all, Nicole Antibe grabbed a defensive board, ran down the court and made a layup to put her team out in front for good with 4:36 remaining. Despite never trailing, Wisla stayed close and with 1:26 to go Janel Burse hit two free throws to close the gap to 83-82. After a Beretta-Famila three, Burse again scored and with a minute to go, it was a two-point game. Schio missed its next opportunity, but got an offensive board. With 29 seconds to go, Wisla began to foul to stop the clock. Italy's Laura Macchi hit 6-of-6 from the line down the stretch, while Wisla made two of its three layup attempts and Schio earned the win.

Macchi shot a perfect 13-of-13 from the line and scored a team-high 24 points, France's Antibe posted 21, and American Marissa Coleman pitched in 11 points in the winning effort. Wisla was led by 27 points from Pole Ewelina Kobryn, Spain's Marta Fernandez hit for 22 points, Brazil's Izi Castro Marques scored 17 and Burse finished with eight points.

Group C
Group C is starting to shake out as Rivas Ecopolis (7-2) will advance as the No. 1 seed. Good Angels Kosice (5-4) earned an important victory over ZVVZ USK Prague (4-5); while Bourges Basket (4-5), ZVVZ USK Prague and MKB Euroleasing Sopron (4-5) are all tied for the third and fourth spot. However, the second, third and fourth slots will not be finalized until after next week's games, which has Gorzow facing Kosice, Sopron going up against Prague and Bourges pitted against Ecópolis.

Good Angels Kosice 89, ZVVZ USK Prague 75
There was no stopping the U.S. tandem of Candice Dupree and Angel McCoughtry, who combined for 51 of their squad's 89 points and 26 of 46 rebounds to lead Good Angels Kosice to a 89-75 victory over ZVVZ USK Prague. Prague struck first with a 6-0 opening run and closed out the quarter up 23-21. The teams swapped leads to open the second quarter. With Kosice trailing 27-26, Dupree and McCoughtry strung together a 14-0 run that gave their team a solid 40-27 lead and by halftime the score was 51-37 in favor of Kosice. The hosts managed to cut the gap to 10 points, 65-55, by the end of the third stanza, but they never seriously threatened in the fourth as Kosice went home with the win. McCoughtry finished with game-highs of 28 points and 15 rebounds to go with four assists, three steals and one blocked shot; while Dupree posted a double-double of 23 points and 11 boards. Croatia's Sonja Kireta led Prague with 21 points and seven rebounds, and the USA's Lindsay Whalen posted 15 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals.

Bourges Basket 84, KSSSE AZS-PWSZ Gorzow 57
Bourges took an early 14-10 lead at the end of the first quarter, expanded it to 29-19 at halftime and exploded out of the halftime gates to outscore the visiting squad 33-15 in the third and rolled to the eventual 84-57 victory over KSSSE AZS-PWSZ Gorzow. Greece's Styliani Kaltsidou was the leading scorer for the French team with 26 points, France's Emmeline Ndongue posted 15 and the USA's Essence Carson finished with 13 points in the win. Poland's Justyna Zurowska scored 27 as the only player to score in double digits for the visiting Polish team.

MKB Euroleasing Sopron 71, Rivas Ecópolis 67
MKB Euroleasing, the young surprise team at last year's Final Four, won its second in a row to get back on track for another playoff run with a 71-67 win on the road against Rivas Ecópolis. American Amber Holt scored 18 points in the win, including her only three of the game that gave her team a 68-67 lead with 1:46 to play. Rivas held a five-point lead heading into the fourth quarter, but Sopron chipped away and tied it up at 64-all with 3:35 to play. The lead see-sawed until Holt's 3-pointer off a Sopron offensive board. Rivas turned the ball over twice and missed its final three attempts, while Sopron hit 3-of-4 from the line in the closing minute to seal the win.

USA National Team hopeful Crystal Langhorne shot 6-of-10 from the field and 7-of-7 from the line for 19 points and grabbed nine rebounds in the loss.

Group D
Spartak (9-0) nearly lost its undefeated status, which wouldn't have changed its Group D top ranking, after a narrow 78-75 road win over Tarbes GB (2-7). Also guaranteed to advance in the group are Fenerbache S.K. (6-3) and Frisco Sika Brno (5-4). The bottom of the bracket, however, is a mess. LOTOS Gdynia (3-7) picked off Frisco Sika Brno 77-73 to improve its chances of advancing, but Tarbes G.B. (2-7) and Szeviép Szeged (2-7) are nipping at Gdynia's heels with one game remaining.

Fenerbache 98, Szeviép Szeged 78
Fenerbache jumped out to a 31-17 lead at home in the first quarter and looked to have a runaway victory in hand. While the hosts never trailed, Szeviép owned the second quarter and narrowed the gap to a point, 42-41, late in the half and headed to the locker room lagging by three, 44-41. Fener was on fire out of the break and quickly built its lead back to 10 points, 54-44, at 7:25. From there the hosts continued to roll and by the end of the third quarter earned an insurmountable 71-49 advantage. Szeged won the fourth quarter by two points for the 20-point final.

'Although we were down by 14 points after the first period we played much better in the second period and finished the half only three points behind," Szeged coach Tamas Bencze told FIBAEurope.com. -I don't know why but in the third period my team didn't play as i wanted them to do, so we found ourselves down by 22 points. We played better in the last period but it wasn't enough.'

Fener had six players score in double digits, including a team-high of 22 from Turk Nevriye Yilmaz, the USA's Nicole Powell added 19 and Tammy Sutton-Brown scored 14. Lithuanian Vaida Sipaviciute posted 25 points and eight boards in her team's losing effort.

Spartak Moscow Region 78, Tarbes GB 75
Spartak's four Americans - Sue Bird, Sylvia Fowles, Janel McCarville and Diana Taurasi " combined for the game's first nine points. However, each time Spartak made a move, Tarbes was right there to counter and never faded into the distance. Tarbes even took a brief lead early in the second quarter as Charde Houston made a jumper to go ahead 28-27. Tarbes' only lead of the game was short-lived as Fowles answered 20 seconds later with a layup to put Spartak back in the lead for good. That sparked another mini-run by the Americans as Spartak went up 41-33 midway through the second. Tarbes countered again and closed to 44-42 with 1:27 to go before halftime. With 35 seconds to go Taurasi scored a pair from the line, then Bird grabbed a defensive board and Taurasi nailed a three at the buzzer to give Spartak a 49-42 halftime lead.

Bird opened the second half with a three, followed by a McCarville layup, but Spartak wasn't able to pull away and after a buzzer-beating jumper by McCarville, Spartak was up 68-60 with one period to play. Tarbes fought back and knotted the game 73-73 with 4:38 remaining. Taurasi sent in her fifth three of the game to retake the lead for good. After a McCarville steal, Latvia's Anete Jekabsone-Zogota got a dish from Taurasi to up the score to 78-73 with 3:26 left. The game's final points came at 2:58 on a Tarbes layup. A flurry of turnovers and missed shots took up the remainder of the contest as neither team was able to get anything going.

Taurasi, who has led the EuroLeague for scoring since the first week of play, continued to top the charts with her 33-point performance. Fowles contributed 17 points and five rebounds, Bird hit for 12 points and McCarville finished with eight points and four assists. Sweden's Frida Eldebrink scored a team-high 19 points in the loss, while Houston added 14 points and five rebounds.

LOTOS Gdynia 77, Frisco Sika Brno 73
In a game that was a must-win for LOTOS Gdynia in order to keep its playoff hopes alive, the Polish hosts held off Frisco Sika Brno for a 77-73 victory. Gdynia squandered a 15-point third-quarter lead as Brno fought back to within three points, 59-56, by the end of the quarter. The game remained tight through the final stanza and with just over a minute to play, Czech national Petra Kulichova hit a jumper to pull Brno to 72-71. Both sides scored on their ensuing possessions and with 39 seconds to play Gdynia's lead remained one, 74-73. With the ball back in LOTOS territory, Serbia's Ivana Matovic took a pass from Australian Erin Phillips and netted a three to virtually ice the game, 77-73. Kulichova's 3-point attempt with nine seconds remaining was blocked, LOTOS came up with the rebound and the victory.

LOTOS, which recently saw the departure of USA National Team hopeful Alana Beard, was led by Matovic's 17 points and Phillips added 16. Kulichova scored a game-high 19 points in the loss, while USA Basketball gold medalists DeWanna Bonner and Taj McWilliams-Franklin posted 14 and 10 points, respectively.