To say Yarone Arbel likes basketball would be an understatement of epic proportions.  He eats, sleeps and breathes it and gives his EuroChallenge impressions every week in Good News, Bad News.

Cholet earned another easy double-digit win, over EiffelTowers Den Bosch, in a great scoring performance by Kevin Braswell.  In Germany Telekom Baskets got their first win in this phase, creating a wide open fight for the second spot between three teams with a 1-2 record, and allowing Cholet to almost secure their spot in the next round.

BC Kyiv came close to reaching a perfect record as well but missed too many free throws and left Bologna with a loss, as Virtus BolognaFiere pulled into a tie on their 2-1 record. Galatasaray stayed in the race thanks to a great finish in the closing minutes in Oldenburg that took some sting out of EWE Basket's win in Bologna last week.

Cajasol added a big road win to kick off their trip in the east over Ural Great, who now seem to be in a difficult situation after a big loss in Cyprus the previous week. Group K saw another home defeat to a Russian club - as Lokomotiv Rostov lost to Proteas EKA AEL who managed an 18 point road win to take a 3-0 record and an open path to the next round.

CSK-VVS Samara became the third Russian team to lose at home this week, but they might find comfort that their loss was in a Russian derby, as Triumph bettered them 81-65 to stay perfect.

Finally, Dexia Mons-Hainaut lost in Holland, allowing EclipseJet MyGuide Amsterdam to hold a better position in the fight for a Top 16 berth.

Here's the good news and the bad news of this week in the EuroChallenge.

The Good News

A.E.L are for R.E.A.L

One of the 2008 Final Four participants, Proteas EKA AEL, has silenced all those with doubts, proven wrong everyone who didn't believe in them, and educated the ones who didn't show enough respect. After three games they stand on a perfect record, and they haven't done it the easy way. So far they have scored a huge road win in Spain, demolished a Russian powerhouse Ural Great by 27 points and shocked Rostov on the road 87-69. Last year they became the first Cypriot team ever to win on Russian soil, but it was a very close win at St. Petersburg. This year the squad of coach Dragan Raca climbed up another step. Quincy Taylor, who scored 25 points on 5 of 7 shooting from long distance, is a legitimate contender for the MVP award of the season.

J.R. Bremer came up big for BC Triumph with 23 points in their win over Samara.

Triumph collected their third win in the Top 16 with an 81-65 road victory over Samara, and a lot of credits go to J.R. Bremer. The US guard, who also holds a Bosnian passport, is the man with the say for Triumph, especially after Kerem Tunceri left the squad to go back to Turkey. Triumph had big expectations from him coming into the season, and all in all he presented a season with lots of ups and downs so far.  In this big game he was totally up to the challenge and delivered 23 points on nine out of 14 shooting from the field with six rebounds. The game was a battle between Bremer and Samara's US point guard, Marque Perry who had 26 points in good percentages and five rebounds, but the biggest difference was in the assists/turnover ratio where Bremer had six great passes against not a single turnover and Perry dished only two assists against four lost possessions.

Three difference making minutes

Just last week Galatasaray got bad rap here for another bad road loss, but this week they escaped a winless record and a very bad situation in the group with a key 93-85 road win at Oldenburg.  It's not only the fact they have won the game, but also the way they handled the pressure. Entering the last three minutes the score was tied at 83-83, and until the buzzer they managed a 10-2 run that made the difference. While the home team missed six shots and turned the ball over once in the closing minutes, the Turks were near perfection to stay alive in the race for the next round, although they still need to write one huge win in the following leg to keep that chance alive.

The Bad News

It's all about timing

Just a week ago Liege was one of the few undefeated teams in the competition. Then came a home loss to Cholet and this week a second loss in a row, on the road by 15 to Telekom Baskets. The visitors suffered a terrible shooting day making only 36% of their field goal attempts. That catastrophe was led by two of their American players: Robert Cummings and Chris Hill who combined for four made shots in 20 attempts. With this loss Liege dropped to 1-2 and they still have games in Cholet and covering a 15 point loss at home against Telekom. Considering the new system doesn't count the games from the first round, in Liege they see now it's not how many wins you have in the season, it's when you win them.

Missed free throws - missed chance

BC Kyiv finished the first leg of the Top 16 in a great situation. They earned a 13 point win in Germany, totally trashed Galatasaray by 33 points at home and this week lost by only four points in Bologna to hold a 2-1 record and the top spot of the standings half way through the phase. With two home games in the next round and just a four point loss to cover things look good, but they could have looked great if Kyiv had handled the pressure. Coming to Italy they stood on over 78% from the free-throw line, one of the best ratios in the competition, but the second half in Bologna changed it all. Kyiv finished the night hitting only 10 out of 22 free throw attempts and it got worse as the game progressed. After going five of eight for the first half, the third quarter saw the visitors miss half of their eight attempts, but it was just a preview for the deciding period. In the closing quarter just one out of six attempts landed inside the net. When the game is decided by just four points that makes a big difference. Three of those six attempts came in the closing seconds, when Scoonie Penn went to shoot after he was fouled on a three point attempt.  He managed to hit just one of his three shots but even if Penn would have hit them all, his team would still have lost, after Virtus showed how to get it done with four made free throws in six attempts in the last minutes, but in case the re-match in Ukraine will turn into another close battle, those missed shots could turn out to be more vital than it seems.