STRASBOURG (Basketball Champions League) - Strasbourg claimed a convincing 83-69 victory over Petrol Olimpija in their opening Group C game of the Basketball Champions League.

Taking part in the competition for a second straight year, Vincent Collet's side took the lead for good late in the first quarter and went in front by as many as 21 points.

Michael Dixon sparkled for Strasbourg, finishing with a game-high 21 points

The visitors from Ljubljana, Slovenia, rallied in the fourth quarter and trimmed the deficit to 70-63 with a thunderous, two-handed dunk from Jordan Morgan capped an 8-0 run.

Michael Dixon Jr, who had a game-high 21 points for the hosts, stretched the lead back to 10 when he buried his third 3-pointer of the game. That basket calmed the Strasbourg nerves and the hosts went on to win by 14.

While SIG were better in most areas of the game, one that might have troubled coached Vincent Collet was the side's inability to get the ball past mid-court on four occasions before the allotted eight seconds.

Something that will have pleased the coach to no end will be the game-high 8 steals collected by captain Jeremy Leloup, who also 7 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists.

Strasbourg, who travel to Germany to take on medi Bayreuth next week, won the rebounding battle, 44-26, and also finished with 24-14 advantage in assists. Gregor Hrovat finished with 13 points for Olimpija, whose next game is at Banvit.