NAHARIYA (Basketball Champions League) – Banvit did justice to the club's #refusetolose motto on the opening night of the Regular Season. Barely two days after making headlines in the Turkish BSL with their win over Darussafaka, Banvit travelled to Ironi Nahariya and found the energy for an emphatic strong finish to claim an 83-70 win in their Group A premiere on Tuesday night.

Asked after the game in Israel whether this is was the performance of a team that aims to go very far in the Basketball Champions League, the head coach of the Turkish team Saso Filipovski avoided the label of the favourite.

"We do not feel any pressure," the Slovenian tactician said. "This is a new team, it is our first year together and we need time to develop. We take it step-by-step, game by game. It is important that we started with a win on the road and we will continue to work with confidence and we will see what happens in the rest of the season."

Banvit trailed Nahariya by as many as six points in the first half, but conceded only nine points in the final frame. Gediminas Orelik led Filipovski's men with 16 points on 4-of-6 three-pointers and added eight boards, Jordan Theodore had 15 points, six rebounds and six assists while Jeremy Chappell finished with 12 points, eight boards and seven assists in a performance rated at a game-high 22 in terms of efficiency. Yet what pleased Filipovski the most was his team's defensive effort down the stretch.

"The difference between the first and the second half was our defence," the Banvit coach said. "We did not open well defensively, we gave up too many points. Our help side did not funciton, we did not cover one-on-one. In the second half we played good defence and keeping Nahariyha to 70 points decided the game, together with our rebounds. Those are the important things to win on the road."