MIES (Switzerland) - Heading to the latest four-game schedule before the last week of this season's Basketball Champions League, no teams involved could have gotten a ticket for the Quarter-Finals yet.
However, Wednesday's action will be remembered. For several reasons.
Bertram Derthona Basket 83-82 AEK Betsson BC
The situation in Group I of the BCL Round of 16, entering this week, saw AEK Betsson BC and Promitheas Patras BC Vikos Cola in diametrical opposite situations.
The Queen made her return to the Quarter-Finals official already last week, while the other Greek side didn't have any chances to prolong their season beyond the Round of 16.
In Italy, despite leading by 12 (61-49) and being up on AEK for more than 34 minutes of action, Walter De Raffaele's team almost got surprised by AEK's umpteenth comeback with a late 7-0 run in the fourth quarter.
Ultimately, thanks to Tommy Kuhse's late dagger to tie at 82-82 and Tommaso Baldasso's clutchness at the line, they secured the victory.
AEK won't mind, they wanted to avoid overtime, as this single point defeat still meant they won the tiebreaker against Derthona. Since they are out of everybody else's reach, AEK won the group even before the last Gameday.
The 2018 BCL champions will now move to the seeded part of the Quarter-Finals draw on March 28, knowing they will have the homecourt advantage, while also avoiding other group winners (Unicaja and La Laguna Tenerife so far).
Justin Gorham - did you take him for your BCL Fantasy? - had a team-high 16-point night for Derthona, scoring 10+ points in each of his last five games in the competition.
For AEK, Prentiss Hubb had 18 points and 8 assists after putting up 30 points and 6 rebounds in the reverse fixture against Derthona.
Off the bench, Mindaugas Kuzminskas (21 points and 6 rebounds) and Hunter Hale (19 points) combined for almost half of Dragan Sakota's team's final points.
FIT/One Würzburg Baskets 115-119 Promitheas Patras BC Vikos Cola
While Derthona will have loads of confidence heading into the final week, Wurzburg are coming off a wild double overtime defeat to previously winless Promitheas. At home, too.
Jordan Walker shocked everybody with a record-breaking 54-point performance. According to Yannis Psarakis, it was the best-scoring performance in all European competitions in the last 25 years.
Mike Lewis (22 points), Davion Mintz (20 points), and Jhivvan Jackson (20 points and 9 assists) weren't enough for the German side.
It's do-or-die time next week, the winner of the Derthona vs. Wurzburg game on Wednesday gets the other Quarter-Finals ticket from this group.
Nanterre 92 76-71 UCAM Murcia
While we already know the names of the first-placed teams in Groups I, J and K, the last group will give us all the answers next week.
In Group L, ERA Nymburk hoped for UCAM Murcia to get the win over Nanterre 92, as that would have mathematically brought both of them to the BCL Quarter-Finals.
However, Nanterre 92 managed to bring out all their pride spirits, celebrating a 76-71 win at home which brought them to a tie with Sito Alonso's team at 3-2, waiting for the final week of action.
The three-headed monster on the French side composed of Justin Tillman (22 points and 8 rebounds), William Howard (15 points and 6 rebounds), and Desi Rodriguez (12 points) was crucial for the home win.
Dylan Ennis scored 16 points to extend his run to seven games in a row with 15+ points in the BCL. Good news for Murcia: they protected the head-to-head lead over Nanterre, as they won the first matchup by 11.
UCAM host Nymburk next week, while Nanterre travel to Hungary to take on Falco-Vulcano Szombathely. A three-way tie at 4-2 could happen, stay tuned for the permutations.
Aliaga Petkimspor 80-85 La Laguna Tenerife
Txus Vidorreta's team left another victim on their road to possibly becoming the first team with three Basketball Champions League titles, as they improved to 11-0 this season, 5-0 in the Round of 16 with yet again another win.
This time, they took down the Turkish side in Aliaga 85-80, with surprising protagonists taking the spotlight.
One of them was surely the 2003-born Bulgarian forward Konstantin Kostadinov, who had his best scoring performance with the Canary powerhouse at 22 points over 10-of-13 from the field without attempting one single three-pointer.
Lluis Costa added 16 points on Wednesday, while the Estonian forward Henri Drell officially made his debut with Tenerife by contributing with 5 points and 3 rebounds to the team's win.
DeWayne Russell concluded the game with a double-double of 13 points and 10 assists for Petkimspor.
As Pallacanestro Reggiana didn't defeat BAXI Manresa on Tuesday, there are still some small chances of qualifying for Petkimspor, which will go on the road to Italy to fight for an upset after already losing 91-87 to the red-and-white side at home.