| 11.01.2008
 | To say Yarone Arbel likes basketball would be an understatement of epic proportions. He eats, sleeps and breathes it and gives his EuroCup impressions every week in Good News, Bad News. |
The third week results in the EuroCup brought us four teams with clean records, all of them from Groups A & B.
Estonian club Tartu Rock in Group A and their "neighbors" from the west Ural Great of Russia in Group B are still perfect with a 3-0 record.
There are also two teams still in search for a debut win - Greek side PAOK of Group A and their "neighbors"  | | Adeleke has been a monster on the boards for Banvit. |
from the west Banvit of Turkey in Group B.
In the other two groups things are much more complicated and the excitement is rising every week. The Good News
Spooky!
The first week of EuroCup in 2008 displayed one spooky coincidence in the points differences department. Both games in Group A were decided by eight points. In Group B both winning sides carried a two point win. Group C followed with a five point margin in both games. In all the three groups there was one high scoring game and one low scoring game. It didn't continue in the closing group, but it was close. The final score in one of the games was 76-65 and the other score was 76-66. Spartak Survives in Greece - Again Seems like Spartak like to live on the edge and more than that - love to come back to life on Greek soil just before the knife will chop their head off. In the elimination round Spartak lost at home by three points to Maroussi in the first leg and entered the last quarter of the second leg in Greece down by five, only to make a 27-13 fourth quarter run to survive. This week they had another visit to Greece - the opponent this time were undefeated Olympia Larissa, and once again the season was on the line. After losing the first two games in the group Spartak, with a new head coach on the sideline, had to win this one or face a very, very tough situation. Once again they entered the last quarter down by five, and once again they stepped-up in the fourth to collect a double-digit quarter win, defeat the Greeks and stay alive in the EuroCup. Olympia scored only two points in the first nine minutes of the last quarter, added only four more in the closing minute, but it was too late then. The Big Run for the Rebounds Title Banvit's Andrew "Kenny" Adeleke and Samara's Yaniv Green hold one of the fascinating battles in the EuroCup this season. Both played the past season in Israel. Green as the best Israeli center was a back up at powerhouse Maccabi Tel Aviv while Adeleke spent his first season out of college in Galil Elyon, and almost eliminated Green's Maccabi in the league's semi-finals. This year they go head-to-head for the best rebounder title. This week they dominated their games. Adeleke downed 28 points and grabbed 15 rebounds on Cherkaski's head in Banvit's 90-88 home loss, while Green wasn't far behind with 25 points and 14 rebounds in Samara's key 65-73 road win in Thessaloniki. After five games Adeleke stands on 62 rebounds while Green is a little behind with 53, it's a battle to follow closely this season.
The Bad News
AEL Still Struggle on the Road Before the New Year break AEL hosted KK Zagreb and easily beat then 103-80. Three weeks later both teams met again, this time AEL played on the road. As famous as they are for being close to unbeatable at home, AEL are famous for struggling on the road. Zagreb won this battle 82-77 but don't let the final score fool you. AEL entered the last quarter down by 20 and didn't really come close to winning this one. Miultin Aleksic shinned once again with a 12 points, 10 assists, five rebound performance, but saw the young prospect Ante Tomic carry the locals with a big performance of 14, 12 and three assists in 28 minutes. AEL hit only three times behind the arc out of 11 attempts. Zagreb got the same amount of three pointers from one of its finest players this season - shooting guard Krunoslav Simon, who scored in double-digits for the fifth time in a row this season. PAOK Went Silent in Overtime PAOK was looking for their first EuroCup win this season. With their new signing - superstar Ibo Kutluay on their side and an eight point lead after 30 minutes of game things seemed optimistic. After five minutes Samara's Alex Scales, who played already in Thessaloniki - for archrivals Aris - hit a three-pointer to give Samara the lead. PAOK were down by two in the last 10 seconds of the game, before Justin Rowe sent the game to over time from the charity stripe tied at 63-63. From that moment on there was only one team on the court. Green and Marque Perry scored all of Samara's 10 overtime points, and Green's dunk sealed the deal with 1:39 to play, since PAOK didn't show up to the overtime. The locals scored only two points in the entire overtime, were one out of six from the field and made two turnovers while the game was still alive, and with that it's impossible to win. After scoring 53 points in the first three quarters of the game PAOK added only 14 points in the last 15 minutes. Cholet's Couldn't Catch It Cholet is another team with different moods which vary on the location of the game. So far they haven't lost at home and didn't gain a road win including their match-up with AEK in the preliminary round. Their trip to Latvia, where they faced Barons LMT wasn't any different. The French side lost 76-66, the biggest defeat of this week in the EuroCup, behind a bad shooting day - only 44.2% from two-point range and 25% on threes and a terrible night handling the ball. Cholet made 20 turnovers and this was certainly a team effort. No less than three players - Stephane Dondon, Nando De Colo and Anthony Dobbins wrote three turnovers while Claude Marquis hid his 17 points and 12 rebound performance behind six turnovers. | 
