The Mariano De Pablos era at Estudiantes began with a win on Tuesday as the Madrid club thrashed BC Siauliai 95-70.

Struggling for form and falling into relegation danger in Spain's domestic league, the ACB, Estu dismissed Pedro Martinez and appointed De Pablos last week.

The victory over Siauliai improved Estu's record to 4-1 in EuroCup Group I, thus clinching a place in the quarter-finals.

Will McDonald scored eight of his game-high 18 points in the first four minutes and 11 seconds of play as Estu took a stranglehold on the game.

When McDonald dunked with 5:49 still to play, the Spanish outfit led 11-0.

Arturas Masiulis had the Lithuanian team's first basket shortly after, but the two points did not stop the bleeding as Estudiantes scored on their next three possessions to stretch their lead to 17-2.

By the end of the first quarter, the lead was 26-15 but Darius Pakamanis and Marius Prekevicius hit back-to-back three-pointers as Siauliai trimmed Estu's lead to 28-23 with 7:53 to play in the first half.

Goran Nikolic and McDonald scored their team's next six points as Estu opened up a double-digit lead again and at half-time, De Pablos' men were in command at 49-34.

Siauliai got no closer than 12 points in the second half as they crashed to their fourth defeat in the group, thus ruling them out of contention of a place in the last eight.