Proteas Progress

Proteas EKA AEL comfortably moved into the EuroCup Qualifying Round by beating BC Dnipro 104-69 as Milutin Aleksic led the way with 19 points, 12 rebounds and six assists.

The Cypriots appeared poised to make a run at returning to the EuroCup quarter-final play-offs, which they reached last season for the first time in club history.

Coming off an 11-point road win last week in Ukraine, Duane Woodward had 17 points for EKA, who had six players total double figures scoring - including Bruno Sundov and Olivier Ilunga off the bench.

Charles Barton's team shot 57% from the floor while out-rebounding the Ukrainians 38-29 and forcing 22 turnovers in finishing off the 168-122 aggregate victory.

Grygorii Khizhniak led the way for Dnipro with 20 points but no other player scored 10 points for Georgiy Stupenchuk's team, who made just 3-of-21 (14%) three-pointers.

The first quarter started as a low-scoring affair as Dmytro Shevchenko's three-pointer gave Dnipro a 12-11 lead with less than four minutes left in the period, but the hosts had grabbed the lead 19-16 after 10 minutes.

The Ukrainians were still in the game midway through the second period, trailing just 26-24 before the Cypriots began to pull away.

Ryan Randle scored six points and Vasily Zavoruev hit two long balls for a 38-27 gap and Woodward's three-ball pushed the lead to 45-33 going into the break.

Barton's team put all doubt to bed early in the second half as EKA AEL started the third on a 19-6 surge to open a 64-39 lead.

Back-to-back three-pointers and another basket by Ilunga closed the quarter with the Cypriots ahead 77-45 going to the fourth.

Another three-ball by Zavoruev made it 83-45.

Stupenchuk's team trimmed the deficit to 27 points with a 14-3 run for 90-63 but Aleksic scored two of Proteas's five straight baskets to re-establish a 100-63 lead.

AEL vs. Dnipro Quotes

Dnipro coach Georgiy Stupenchuk:

“It was a tough game. AEL players play very well especially the guards and scored many points something that killed us in the first half. We couldn’t play as I wanted to play, we didn’t run as I wanted to and we lose the game. I wish the best for AEL team at the FIBA EuroCup”.   

AEL coach Chalres Barton:

“I’m impressed with my team and my players. They never stop running and pushing through all the game. I was very concerned before the game because I have in mind what happened in Timisoara when the Romanian team won with 10 points in Ukraine and lost to Dnipro at home with 11 points. But my players were focused on the game  the play very good in defense and I’m very satisfied from my team performance. My players work very hard every day and I see progress day by day. We have very good players in the team and although that I don’t know the other teams I’m very optimistic in our goal which is to play in the Final Four."