ANTALYA (Turkiye) - Cholet Basket presented their new look team in the Semi-Finals, and tried using their depth to take down Aliaga Petkimspor in Tournament 3 of the BCL Qualification Round. However, Breein Tyree and Bryson Williams had other ideas.
First, Tyree caused a headache for Cholet Basket's defense with 22 points, including five three-pointers. Once the French club decided to take the scoring away from him, Petkimspor's guard found his big guy Williams on wide open three-pointers twice in the final three minutes to put the game out of Cholet's reach.
The Turkish side prevailed 76-70 as Tyree added 5 rebounds and 5 assists to fill up his statlines, while Williams also finished with 22 points. The two of them shot a combined 9-of-15 from beyond the arc.
Aliaga Petkimspor are now just one step away from becoming the 13th different Turkish club in the Basketball Champions League. The last obstacle in their path towards the Regular Season will be PAOK mateco.
The Greek juggernauts have a total of seven BCL campaigns under their belt, and a win on Saturday would make it eight out of nine seasons in this competition for the Thessaloniki side.
In the Semi-Finals on Thursday, PAOK mateco defeated CSM CSU Oradea by a single point, 81-80, thanks to a clutch three-pointer by Frank Bartley with 30 seconds to play.
The Greeks side did have to hold their breath as time expired, as Kris Richard had a chance to win it for the Romanian league runners-up, but his three-pointer rimmed out as the final buzzer went off. PAOK could start celebrating a spot in the Final, behind Bartley's inspiring performance as he had 27 points to lead all scorers.
The winner of Tournament 3 will join Regular Season Group B, where the defending champions Unicaja await, along with Filou Oostende and King Szczecin.