Taurasi Tabbed EuroLeague All-Star

Feb. 2, 2010 - 2009-10 EuroLeague Results

Taurasi Highlights EuroLeague All-Star Starters
Diana Taurasi was among the top five vote-getters for the Rest of the World team for this year's EuroLeague All-Star Game, marking her fourth selection in five seasons. She was joined by Americans Janell Burse at center and Nicole Powell at forward, the Virgin Islands' Sophia Young at forward and Australia's Penny Taylor at guard as the top five vote-getters by position. However, only two players per team are allowed to compete. Therefore, Powell, who plays for Fenerbache along with Taylor and Europe starting guard Marta Fernandez of Spain, will be replaced by USA National Team hopeful Candice Dupree. USA National Team member Cappie Pondexter actually received more votes than Dupree, but she already has a pair of UMMC Ekaterinburg teammates competing, Frenchwoman Sandrine Gruda and Poland's Agnieszka Bibrzycka.

REST OF THE WORLD STARTERS (in order of votes)
G - Diana Taurasi, Spartak Moscow
G - Penny Taylor, Fenerbahce
C - Janell Burse, Wisla Can-Pack Krakow
F - Sophia Young, Galatasaray
F - Candice Dupree, Good Angels Kosice

EUROPE STARTERS (in order of votes)
C - Nevriye Yilmaz, Fenerbahce
F - Sandrine Gruda, UMMC Ekaterinburg
F - Agnieszka Bibrzycka, UMMC Ekaterinburg
G - Marta Fernandez, Wisla Can-Pack Krakow
G - Becky Hammon, Ros Casares Valencia

Taurasi Remains Scoring Leader
After leading the league for scoring over each of the first 10 weeks of the season, Diana Taurasi might have ceded her stranglehold on high scoring honors to USA National Team hopefuls Candice Dupree or Angel McCoughtry. However, all three had off games in terms of scoring (see game recaps below) and Taurasi continued her reign as EuroLeague scoring champ.

No Sweet Sixteen Upsets
No surprises were to be had in the first game of the best-of-three series as most of the higher seeded teams won their games today. The only two games that saw the visitors capture victory were middle of the pack match-ups as No. 11 Frisco Sika Brno (7-4) downed No. 6 Rivas Ecopolis (7-4) and No. 10 Good Angels Kosice (7-4) defeated No. 7 Beretta-Famila Schio (7-4).

Sweet Sixteen Game 1 Recaps

Spartak Moscow Region 98, LOTOS Gdynia 49
Spartak was asleep at the wheel to start the game and fall behind early 10-0 to the visiting LOTOS Gdynia. However, the home team quickly stabbed back with an 11-0 spurt to take a 11-10 lead with 3:59 to play in the first period. LOTOS answered with a jumper, but Sylvia Fowles' layup at 3:29 put her team in the lead for good, 13-12. Holding onto a 17-14 edge with 1:30 to play in the first quarter, Spartak put the game out of reach with a dominating 18-2 run, 10 points coming from Fowles, and with 4:15 to play before halftime the hosts were in charge 35-16. By the midway break Spartak's lead was 43-16, at the end of three it ballooned to 76-39 and the team outscored LOTOS 22-10 in the fourth quarter for the final.

Spartak, which is now 11-0 on the season, was led by Janel McCarville's 22 points, Fowles finished with 21 points and 10 boards, Sue Bird chipped in nine points and Taurasi, who dished out a whopping 10 assists and was credited for six steals and five rebounds, produced a season-low seven points.

LOTOS got a team high 12 points and seven rebounds from Tanisha Wright, while Australia's Erin Phillips chipped in 11 points.

-We did a good job of executing our half court offense, which resulted in me getting some good shots which I was able to knock down," McCarville told FIBAEurope.com. -Now we have to play again well in Gdynia."

UMMC Ekaterinburg 79, Galatasaray 55
After a close first four mintues, UMMC Ekaterinburg blew open the game and rolled to the 79-55 victory over the visiting Turk club from Galatasaray. Holding an 8-7 edge, UMMC got a 3-pointer from Cappie Pondexter, followed by Deanna Nolan's only two points of the game, and a pair of free throws from Candace Parker and at 4:31 the hosts owned a 15-7 advantage. By the end of the first period the lead was 10 points, 26-16, and after Ekaterinburg won the second quarter 22-8, the game was well in hand at halftime, 48-24. The hosts put more distance on their opponents in the third period, 18-9, before settling in for the final 10 minutes.

Poland's Agnieszka Bibrzycka led Ekaterinburg with 17 points, Pondexter and Belgium Ann Wauters posted 12 points apiece and Parker finished with 10 points.

Galatasaray received a game-high 18 points from Sophia Young, Turk national Esra Sencebe had 10 points and the recently signed two-time Olympic gold medalist Tamika Catchings was held to seven points on 2-of-11 shooting from the field and contributed four rebounds, three assists and two steals.

-We came out to play in good condition," Nolan told FIBAEurope.com. -(We) set the tone pretty good, quickened where we needed to, slowed down where we needed to, were good in 3-pointers, (and) opened the (paint) for the big girls. (The) good start helped us to win."

Wisla Can-Pack 80, MiZo Pecs 2010 53
Despite a double-double effort of 14 points and 10 rebounds from USA Basketball gold medalist Nicole Ohlde, MiZo Pecs 2010 fell to host Wisla Can-Pack 80-53. Janell Burse and Israeli Liron Cohen led Wisla with 17 and 16 points, respectively.

Wisla held a five-point, 42-37, lead heading into the locker room and stormed out in the second half to quickly take an 11-point, 51-40, upper hand less than four minutes into the stanza. Continuing to hold onto its momentum, the hosts went up 62-46 at the end of the period and outscored MiZo 18-7 in the fourth quarter for the win.

Ros Casares Valencia 81, ZVVZ USK Prague 70
Ros Casares built itself a 21-point lead in the first half and held off ZVVZ USK Prague in the second half for the eventual 81-70 victory.

The Spanish team, which had five players score in double digits, was led in the attack by Brazil's Erika de Souza with 24 points and 12 rebounds. Two-time Olympic gold medalist DeLisha Milton-Jones finished with a team second-best 14 points and also grabbed six boards, while three others scored 10 points apiece. Prague had three players score in double digits, with Charde Houston topping the list with 16 points and USA National Team hopeful Lindsay Whalen added 13.

Fenerbache 89, Cras Basket Taranto 83
Australia's Penny Taylor scored a game-high 28 points as Fenerbache pulled out a close 89-83 victory over Cras Basket Taranto to go up 1-0 in the three-game series.

The first half was close throughout and at halftime the gap was two points in favor of Fenerbache, 38-36. The hosts fought their way to a 10-point lead early in the second half, 50-40. However, behind six points from Rebekkah Brunson, Cras Basket managed to close to 53-52 at 3:51 and at the end of the quarter still trailed by one point, 63-62. The opening minutes of the final stanza saw four lead changes and one knotted score as Bulgaria's Nevriye Yilmaz put Fener in the lead for good, 70-69, with 7:52 to play. Ahead 74-71, Taylor knocked down four straight free throws in a 6-0 run to give Fener some breathing room, 80-71, and at 5:10 the Italian side called a timeout. However, the visitors weren't able to mount a run in the closing minutes and still trailed by nine points, 89-80, when Brunson hit a 3-pointer with 17 seconds to play for the game's final points.

In addition to Taylor's 28-point haul, Fener was assisted by 22 points and 11 rebounds from Yilmaz, Tammy Sutton-Brown added 16, and Nicole Powell chipped in 11. Taranto's efforts were led by 25 points from Brunson, while Brazil's Ilisaine David, Michelle Greco and Megan Mahoney each posted 12 points in the loss.

Frisco Sika Brno 88, Rivas Ecopolis 83
Rivas Ecopolis started the season on fire, winning seven straight, but has dropped its last four games, including the first of the Sweet Sixteen round by five points, 88-83, to Frisco Sika Brno. While the Brno club was one of just X teams to win on the road, it's not much of an upset between the two as both now have even 7-4 overall records on the season. The Brno club jumped out to a 35-26 lead in the first quarter and upped that to 55-43 lead at the midway break. The visitors then stormed out of the locker room and went up by 71-52 with 10 minutes to play. Rivas tried to regroup and outscored Frisco Sika 31-17 in the fourth quarter, but the gap was simply too immense and the hosts now have to win the next two games in order to advance.

USA World Championship gold medalist Taj McWilliams-Franklin posted a monstrous 21-point, 10-rebound game for Brno. Also aiding in the win were Czechs Hana Horakova with 21 points, six rebounds and five assists and Eva Viteckova with 19 points. DeWanna Bonner also pitched in 13 points and five boards.

Crystal Langhorne had game-highs of 21 points and 11 boards for Rivas.

Halcon Avenida 72, Bourges Basket 53
Halcon Avenida jumped out to a massive 28-9 lead to start the game, owned a comfortable 37-25 lead at the halftime buzzer and sailed through the second half for the eventual 72-53 win over Bourges Basket.

Sancho Lyttle led the way for the hosts with 24 points and 10 rebounds, Belgium Anke De Mondt went 5-of-7 from 3-point and finished with 17 points, while Le'Coe Willingham posted 13 points and seven rebounds.

Croatia's Ana Lelas top scored for Bourges with 13 points, while France's Paoline Salagnac went for 11 points and eight rebounds.

Good Angels Kosice 70, Beretta-Famila 67
Good Angels Kosice won its first playoff game in EuroLeague history, earning a narrow 70-67 victory over Beretta-Famila Schio after Slovakian Lucia Kupcikova stepped to lead her team in the win.

Kupikova's season averages through 10 games were 5.5 ppg. and 2.2 rpg. in 17.1 minutes, however, with team leaders Candice Dupree and Angel McCoughtry struggling from the field, Kupikova poured in 17 points and grabbed nine rebounds in 28 minutes of action. Dupree finished with 11 points on 4-of-12 shooting from the field and eight boards, while McCoughtry shot 4-of-14 from the field and produced 15 points and seven rebounds. Italian Laura Macci posted a high of 24 points in her side's loss.

After an even 18-18 first quarter, the Good Angels outscored their hosts by 12 points in the second quarter to take a 48-36 lead heading into the locker room. Just as Beretta-Famila struggled in the second period, so did the Slovakian club in the third and the hosts were able to narrow the gap to 56-51.

With 42 seconds to go Macchi netted a three to close to four points, 68-64. Dupree was sent to the line with 25 seconds remaining and hit one of two, but Raffaella Masciardri hit another 3-pointer for the Italian club, pulling her side to within two points, 69-67, with 15 seconds left. McCoughtry was then sent to the line with nine ticks on the clock and after making her second, Masciadri's potentially game-tying 3-pointer was off the mark and Good Angels escaped with the victory.