08 October, 2019
04 October, 2020
00 John Brown (BRIN)
12/12/2019
News
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Five things we learned this week - Gameday 8

MIES (Switzerland) - Did you know which team has the most Regular Season wins, what record did Basketball Champions League debutants Manresa set this week and how high is the tide in Antwerp?

Find out all that - and more - as we have an alternative look at some facts and stats from this week's action!

1. NOTHING LASTS FOR EVER

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Nizhny Novgorod turned heads around Europe on Tuesday by handing Iberostar Tenerife their first defeat in is season's Basketball Champions League, 75-72.

The Russian side not only halted the Tenerife express after seven straight wins in this BCL campaign, but also snapped the Spanish team's 16-game winning streak on the road in the Regular Season.

You read that right, Tenerife's previous defeat away from the island in a Regular Season game was in October 2017, when they fell 73-72 at Ventspils in the opening week of the 2017-18 season.

The loss at Nizhny means that Tenerife can no longer hope to match or beat AS Monaco's record for best start to a BCL season. The French team kicked off the 2017-18 campaign on an incredible 13-game winning streak.

Tenerife remain however the only one among the 32 teams in this season's BCL that can still finish the Regular Season on a 13-1 win-loss record, if they win their remaining six games.

That would convert them into the third team to reach this record in competition history, after Monaco in 2017-18 and fellow Spanish side UCAM Murcia in 2018-19.


2. BUT THIS RECORD COULD REALLY LAST FOR EVER...


BAXI Manresa shattered the record for most assists in a single BCL game after dishing out a collective 41 assists in the scoring fest that was their 121-102 victory at Polski Cukier Torun on Wednesday.

It is difficult to imagine a team breaking this record in the foreseeable future, if we consider that the previous record was 'only' 34 assists. It was held jointly by Avtodor Saratov, who had 34 assists against Kataja in October 2016, and by UNET Holon, who reached that same number against...Torun on Gameday 2.

Manresa fell just short of also claiming the record for most points scored due to the fact Holon had set the bar very high in that Gameday 2 win - Manresa scored 121 points while the Israeli team had scored 122 in Poland.

The Spanish side also just missed out on tying the BCL record for most three-pointers in a single game as they made 19 shots from behind the arc and EWE Baskets Oldenburg, who hit 20 triples against UCAM Murcia in November 2017, retains the record.

As for Torun, who were on the losing end of both Holon's and Manresa's record-breaking performances, this is not all: The Polish side became on Wednesday the first ever team in the history of the competition to lose three games in which they scored 100 or more points.

3. PAINT IT BLACK (BRINDISI BLUE, RATHER)


Happy Casa Brindisi scored 68 points in the paint in their 96-82 comeback win over Neptunas Klaipeda, more than any other team so far this season.

You would think that 68 points in the paint is  an all-time BCL record, but in actual fact Brindisi only matched a previous record by MHP Riesen Ludwigsburg. The German team  had scored the exact same amount of points in the key in a win over Szolnoki Olaj in November 2016.

Brindisi's ability to take it so close to the rim helped them shoot an excellent 39 of 60 (65 percent) from two-point range on Wednesday. The Italian side are fourth in the league in two-point field goal percentage, shooting 56.1 percent on average from within the arc, while their three-point field goal percentage is 32.2 percent.


4. THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF THE ANTWERP TIDE


The city of Antwerp is known around the world for its port, but even the sea tide could not possibly match the highs and lows of Telenet Giants Antwerp on Tuesday.

The Belgian team's bench players scored only 5 points in the 65-60 loss to San Pablo Burgos at home, which is the lowest contribution by any team's second unit this season.

The only Antwerp players to score off the bench were Ibrahima Fall Faye who had 3 points and Dennis Donkor who had 2 points. By contrast, the Burgos bench players scored 38 points.

On the bright side, the Belgian team brought down 24 offensive rebounds, which is a new league-high this season and has only happened three times previously in competition history.


5. A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING


Zeljko Sakic of Lietkabelis, who had 31 points in his team's 86-82 loss to Dinamo Sassari on Tuesday, became the first player this season to score at least 30 points in multiple games. Interestingly, in the same game Sassari's Michele Vitali became the first player this season to spend at least 20 minutes on the court without either scoring from the field, getting a rebound or dishing an assist.

Lamonte Ulmer of Dijon became the first player this season and only the third in BCL history to register an efficiency rating of 34 or more in consecutive games. Ulmer had an efficiency rating of 34 in his team's 82-81 overtime loss at Falco, a week after registering an efficiency rating in the win over Besiktas. The only players to have achieved this feat previously were David Kennedy, in November 2017, and Vince Hunter in January 2019.

Jordan Davis, who was only playing his second BCL game with RASTA Vechta this week, became the first player this season to come off the bench and collect at least 20 points and 5 rebounds in less than 30 minutes of action. The American guard had 24 points and 7 rebounds in 23 minutes and 55 seconds in his team's 103-92 loss at Anwil.