Dragon Delight As Belgacom Fall In Germany

Ronald Ross poured in 19 points to help propel Artland Dragons past Belgacom Liege in the EuroChallenge on Tuesday.

The German club hit back from an early seven-point deficit and ended up posting an 86-78 victory over Liege.

Ronald Ross paced the Artland offence with is 19 points

Artland improved to 1-1 in Group J of the Last 16 while Liege slumped to 0-2.

The Dragons trailed 41-40 at half-time but came out of the locker rooms breathing fire.

Charles Lee knocked down a three-pointer and Ross followed with a lay-up in a 5-0 spurt that put the home side in front for good.

Artland gradually added to their lead and went to the last quarter in front at 66-57.

Liege closed the gap to 84-78 with 4 seconds remaining but fouled Lee and he sank two free-throws to end the scoring.

Poor free-throw shooting killed the Belgian outfit.

The visitors were just 10 of 17 (58.8%) at the stripe compared to Artland's 22 of 26 (84.6%) effort.

Four other Dragons finished in double figures, including Darren Fenn who had 14 points and seven rebounds.

Adrian Banks scored 22 points in defeat.

Quotes ARTLAND DRAGONS vs. BELGACOM LIEGE

Thorsten Leibenath (head coach Artland Dragons):
"We knew it would be a tough game against the top team of the Belgium league. So I am happy that we won although I wish we could have won with a larger margin. Our deep bench made the difference today. We scored at a high percentage for the two pointers and knew that we didn't have to take that many three pointers. Our defense was good in the first three quarters especially on their threes. But we have to understand that we have to defend also in the last quarter. It is a bad thing that they hit as many threes in the fourth quarter as they did in the three quarters before."

Darius Hall (player Artland Dragons):
"We knew this would be a tough game and so I am very happy that we won. We also knew that we had to win to keep our chances of advancing to the next round, especially at home. We also knew that we definitely had to play better and that's what we did."

Dario Gjergja (head coach Belgacom Liege):
"When you let this team do what they do most time of the season you cannot win. Artland shot 55 percent from three and 64 percent from two and we let them get into their rhythm. We were not aggressive enough. In the first have we controlled the rebound and their screen defense and also a little bit the inside game. But then we had problems with an injured big man and another big guy in foul trouble, so we had to put in two young guys that are not ready to play in games like this. I wouldn't say we were undisciplined, but we didn't make those tatical fouls. We had six 'and ones'. My team is not experienced enough to control games like this in the last ten to 15 minutes."

 Guy Muya (player Belgacom Liege):
"We knew that this is a tough place to play. But we started good into the game, but then they were more aggressive and we let them run so they came back into the game. We also lost one of our big guys with an injury and had the other one in foul trouble. So they did a good job on the inside game."