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.

16 second leg games of this elimination round were split in the following way.

Only two teams - Lappeenranta and Barons - needed to hold on to their first leg win, and survived despite losing this week, we'll get down to their stories further on.

Four teams turned it upside down and overcame a first leg loss with an impressive win and  three of them recovered from a big road loss while the fourth was the only to do it on the road.  The vast majority of the teams completed a double win and easily qualified to the group stage.

		Rolandas Jarutis led the way Cherkaski Mavpy with 32 points and 10 assists.

Pantouris' Heroic Run

The big story of this round was in the Cherkasy Mavpy – Apoel Nicosia tie. In the first leg in Cyprus Apoel won by 16, but with one minute to play in Ukraine they had seen that lead disappear as their opponents were up by 20, that’s before Giorgis Pantouris took over. The Cyprus forward is a hard nosed player. Not a big star, but the type of player to come off the bench and fight to the death. In the first leg he scored seven points and up to that critical point in the second game he had only two. In the last minute he almost eliminated Cherkasy by himself. It started with an offensive rebound tip-in. Then he stole the ball and added two more points to make it a 16 point game. With 11 seconds on the clock he knocked down a killer three-pointer to cap a personal one minute 7-0 run and save the day for Apoel, or maybe not. Cherkasy’s Lithuanian point guard, Rolandas Jarutis, who scored only eight in the first leg, knocked down a big three-pointer at the other end and forced overtime. There he added seven points, all from the charity stripe, on his way to a 32 point and ten assist night, which gave Cherkasy a 21 point win and a ticket to the next stage. Pantouris? He committed his fourth foul early in the overtime, and the coach immediately took him out. He came back with only 17 seconds to go and couldn't do much.

Finland is Back

For the first time since the 2003/04 season Finland has a club in the EuroCup group stage. Lappeenranta eliminated Keravnos of Nicosia and showed that the club who won back-to-back championships in Finland and a national cup title not that long ago, wants to show their strength in Europe as well. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to spot the difference in these two teams.  While the Finnish took 32 shots from long range in the first game the club from Cyprus settled for 17. Since their made shots weren't that different, only three more for Lappeenranta, it didn't make a big difference. In the second leg it did make a difference. Keravnos needed to overcome a 16 point loss, but the long distance shooting of the Finns made it impossible. Once again Lappeenranta took many more three-pointers – 31 to just 16- but this time the made shots had a big impact. Keravnos hit only once from long range, while Lappeenranta made 14, enough to maintain the 16 point first leg win and earn a group stage ticket.

Monster Double-Double, Monster Run-and-Gun

Last week we mentioned AEL's Miultin Aleksic after his impressive 15 point and 15 rebound double-double. This week Aleksic once again had an impressive showing when he delivered 19 points, 12 rebounds and six assists in AEL's 104-69 win over Dnipro, yet this week's double-double props go to someone else. Banvit's Kenny Adeleke celebrated in his team's 95-83 win over KA Basket with 21 points and the exact same number of rebounds. Adeleke, a Nigeria born player in his second season in Europe, is a great rebounder on both ends of the floor, he pulled down 10 of his rebounds on the offensive end, and enjoyed the high-tempo of the match to reach those numbers. Banvit took 76 field goal attempts while the club from Iceland attempted 80. If you think this means the charity stripe was left alone, think again. Each team went there 29 times, and since there were no high percentages, both teams combined for no less than 98 rebounds.

The Bad News

Nahariya's Bucket

Barons LMT won a group stage berth thanks to a single point. They beat Ironi Nahariya by four in the first leg, and a casual observer might of thought they were in a pretty good position to advance after taking a 28-13 lead after one quarter. Except, that is, for those who know the arena in Nahariya and its magical powers. The locals entered the last quarter down by 13, and a total of 17 on aggregate, but that's not even a challenge for them. Slowly the home side cut into the lead. With 1:30 to play Nahariya finally took their first lead, and a minute later came one point short of leading the tie, with an 83-80 advantage. Everything seemed to go in Nahariya's direction when Raimonds Vaikulis went to the line to shoot two, and after missing only one of eight shots in the dual-matches up to that point, he missed both. Nahariya had 20 seconds and two chances to score the needed bucket, but instead kicked the bucket and finished the season much earlier than expected.

Let Them Play Ball

Zlatorog Lasko of Slovenia lost by eight at home to Greek side Olympia. If you thought the second leg was going to be just for the records, both teams came with a big fighting spirit and showed they are willing to battle for a ticket to the next round.  Both teams rarely allowed easy baskets. Lasko finished the game with only 14 attempts inside the arc while shooting 29 three-pointers and no less than 43 free-throws. Five minutes into the game Olympia took a 7-5 lead, but from that point on we saw a marching band to the free throw line.  By the end of the quarter both teams had gone to the line 17 times and it didn't stop there. In the last five minutes of the second quarter Lasko took only one shot from the field and the rest were free-throws. In the third quarter both teams took a break and only four free throws were registered, all by the locals. Since the game was tied early in the fourth, the parade to the line continued. 35 free-throws were added to the list in the fourth. Olympia ended up winning by a point and both teams deserve credit for their aggressive style of play but a game with that many trips to the foul line usually isn’t a pretty sight.