Late Show By Noel Gives Roanne Thrilling Victory

A lay-up by David Noel at the buzzer gave Roanne Basket an 83-81 win over Hapoel Jerusalem and a slender lead in the Eurocup Qualifying Round tie.

Hapoel looked good bets to win early on.

They went in front by 16 points in the first quarter and outscored their hosts 34-19 in the frame.

The visitors weren't able to build on the great start, though, with the hosts going on a 26-6 run to lead the contest at 45-42 with 3:15 remaining in the first half.

Hapoel ended up taking a 50-48 advantage to the break.

In a very tight game, Roanne managed to build a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter but Hapoel went on a late surge and knotted the contest at 81-81 after a pair of free-throws by Yuval Naimy.

Noel, a former North Carolina Tar Heel, scored the last two of his game-high 26 points with the lay-up at the death to give Roanne the first-leg triumph.

Jean Denys Choulet's French outfit put up 37 attempts from behind the arc and made 15 (40.5%) compared to 10 of 21 (47.6%) for Hapoel.

Dijon Thompson had 14 points, five rebounds and five assists for Hapoel Jerusalem.

Quotes Roanne Basket vs. Hapoel Jerusalem

Hapoel Jerusalem Coach Guy Goodes:

"For us, it's a good result. Because we have to understand that our league starts just on the 25th. This is our first official game. Roanne until now played 3 league games, so before the match, I said to the reporters that the only advantage that Roanne have, is that they start before us to play.

"The two teams are very equal, the two teams are very similar. I think today we started very well in the match, we got the confidence. After this, the second quarter, Roanne came back into the game and in the second half we knew that we couldn't give Roanne another 50 points on offense and we succeeded to keep them on 35 something like this.

"Like I said before, I think it's a good result for us. The second half today was the first half. Next week it's going to be the second half in our gym. First of all, we have a league game after this one, but it depends on us, we like when our future and our destiny in our home court with the fans is on our hands. Again, I want to congratulate my team, I think it was a very good match for us, a good result. Basically, 2 points here or 2 point there is like 0-0. We have to play good next week and to qualify, that's the goal."

Roanne player David Noel:

"Points wise I think we've been playing well all through the games, we've just come up short a few times but all in all I think we showed a collective effort tonight. I think the home crowd helped us out a little bit, so we were able to pull out the win tonight.

"Coach kind of ripped into us a little bit or fussed at us at halftime and we knew we started slow, they made a lot of shots in the first quarter and we were lucky enough to make some shots in the second quarter to bring us back, so that kept us in the game for a little while and then we continued to make shots throughout the rest of the game, timely shots that helped us out."

Hapoel Jérusalem player Chester Simmons:

Like coach said, I think that we are in a good position, too. We lost by 2 points but we are coming back to our home court and ours fans, I think it's good for us.

Roanne Coach Jean-Denys Choulet:

I'm not happy of the whole game. I'm satisfied of David Noel who played a great game tonight. We deserve more than a win of 2 points at the end. We came back with bench players. We will have to make a great great game next week to qualify.