Galil Elyon made a sensational start to their 2005 FIBA Europe League campaign tonight, defeating champions Unics Kazan at home, 99-86.
Galil Elyon, who are coached by recently retired start Oded Kattash, produced a red hot shooting display, nailing 66% of their field goal attempts to stun Kazan.
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Lior Eliyahu
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The home team's relentless outside barrage allowed them to build a small early lead and Kazan was never able to recover.
Galil Elyon are one of the youngest sides in this year's FIBA Europe League and have just 3 players older than 25 on the roster. One of those is Puerto Rican national team player Christian Dalmau and his 21 points and 6 assists were a key factor in the home team's win.
Other than Dalmau, coach Kattash will no doubt have been very pleased with the peformances of young up-and-comers Anton Kazarnovski and Lior Eliyahu. Both were members of Israel's U20 national team that won a silver medal in this summer's European Championship.
Eliyahu, who was a revelation in the final rounds of the European Championship, got the starting nod from Kattash and repaid the faith shown in him by the coach. He had a game high 23 points (10/11 shooting) in 25 minutes.
Kazarnovski was only given 17 minutes to play with, but used his limited time to great effect, nailing 13 points.
After winning a close game last week against Fenerbahce (78-75), Kazan will have their work cut out if they want to dominate the competition like last season.
Kaspars Kambala top scored for Kazan with 25 points, while Chris Anstey had 18 and 8 rebounds.
