BC Triumph Ease Past Samara To Seal Top Spot

BC Triumph will storm into the EuroChallenge Quarter-Finals as Top 16 Group L winners after beating CSK-VVS Samara on Tuesday.

In the all-Russian battle, Triumph prevailed 86-67 to finish 5-1 while dropping Samara to 0-6.

Stanislav Eremine's team used a 13-2 scoring burst early in the second half to take a 51-41 lead and never turned back.

Samara got no closer than 10 points in the fourth quarter.

Sergey Toporov and Marque Perry each scored five points in the decisive run for Triumph.

Toporov finished with 20 points and Perry 13 while teammate Fedor Dmitriev poured in a game-high 21.

Samara did show some battling qualities in the first half.

They were behind 34-24 but outscored Triumph 13-4 over the last 3:18 of the second quarter to trail 38-37 at the break.

When play resumed, the visitors took a 39-38 lead after a Samuel Clancy dunk.

Toporov made a lay-up, however, to put Triumph right back in front.

The shot also triggered the decisive 13-2 surge that put Triumph in command for good.

Clancy had 19 points and Mladjen Sljivancanin 18 in defeat.

Had Triumph lost and fallen to 4-2, they were in danger of finishing second because a Dexia Mons-Hainaut victory over EclipseJet MyGuide Amsterdam in Tuesday's other Group L game would have given the Belgian side first place.

Quotes BC Triumph vs. CSK-VVS

BC Triumph coach Stanislav Eremin:
"We started in a good rhythm, playing good defense and offense, but when we made some changes on the court the game turned against us. Maybe we lost some concentration because of the early easy entry into the game and our rivals found their game. They played aggressively in defense and won the second quarter. Regarding the second half it was hard to return ti the same rhythm and [to the same] score difference but we succeeded. But the result is a result, and now we're waiting for our rival in the Quarter-Finals."

CSK VVS-Samara coach Vladislav Konovalov:
"This game meant nothing for us. Triumph was trying to win to get first place in the group while we were trying to put into the game all our new young players to create the team, to fix the mutual communications in the team. Dmitriev made a good game tonight, we expected this and tried to stop him. Also Toporov showed good basketball tonight."

BC Triumph's Feder Dmitriev:
"It's great that we won the first place in a group. We started well, but we lost concentration at the end of the first half. We had a discussion in the break, the coaching staff telling us some things, then we came out and won. I felt the confidence and the coach's credit [to me] and scored as much as I could. I think that I can play a better game. Talking about our rival in the Quarter-Finals, I would prefer to play against Ural-Great , because we know this team better than the Spanish one."

CSK VVS Samara's Gennadiy Zelensky:
"As you know we lost some foreign players and now we had to play a few games in a row with only six players. It's hard, that's why our first goal was to find the right players to create the new team with young players."