Triumph Win After Sergeev Trey Forces OT

BC Triumph Lyubertsy clinched first place in Group H of the EuroChallenge on Tuesday with an 87-81 overtime triumph at Kalev Kramo.

The Russian team improved to 4-2 and finished above BC Kyiv (also 4-2) on a goal-differential tie-breaker of +2.

Kalev Kramo finished bottom with a 2-4 mark.

Kalev looked as if they were going to win the game in regulation but a three-pointer by Triumph's Pavel Sergeev at the death tied the contest at 74-74.

Former Benetton Treviso and CSKA Moscow star Marcus Goree then started the extra period with a three-point play to put Triumph in front for good.

Goree had 14 points and 11 rebounds in the game.

Josh Pace led all scorers with 21 points for Kalev.

Kalev lost the first game against Triumph in Moscow by 16 points, which meant they needed to prevail by 17 on Tuesday to advance to the Top 16 ahead of their Russian opponents.

Coaches Quotes

Marcus Goree (BC Lyubertsy Triumph):

"It was a tough game. They came out, made a lot of shots, playing good defense. But then we managed to push our game on and get a solid lead. In the second half they turned the speed up, pressed us and forcing us to make turnovers. They started to hit shots and came back to the game. We just had to stick with it, and hope we don't run out of energy. In the second half we also played well together and we played basketball how it should be played, we moved the ball well, found the open shots and made them. So in general, we played good together."

Nenad Vucinic (Coach of BC Kalev/Cramo):

"As a team, we are very dissapointed that we are out of EuroChallenge. We had goals to get to the next stage, but that's gone for us now and that is a dissapointment for us because we feel that we can compete with those teams in that competition. Today it was a hard task for us, we had a huge mountain to climb to beat a team with extra quality like Triumph by 17 points. We belived that we can do it and in many parts in the game we showed that we can do it. But I think the desire to win the game got ahead of us and we started to rush things in the end and we paid the price for that. But I'm proud of this team, proud of these guys - they gave everything they got for 45 minutes tonight. But it didn't happen for us, we didn't play well enough, but again it was a good effort by our team and they showed a great heart to stay focused and positive till the end and showed that we can play against teams that are a lot better of us on paper."

Valmo Kriisa (BC Kalev/Cramo):

"In the end luck was on the stronger side with usually making that three-point shot. Of course we were trying to win by at least 17 points and that means that we had to take some risks. But today, even though we played a very good game, we did not managed to win. And even though we have had many good games in EuroChallenge, we are still not there, where we want to be as a team and basically that's why we didn't get through to the next round. But I think we gave a good fight and people who came to see the game have good reason to come to our games in the future also."