MIES (Switzerland) - In the clash that brought back the most memories among the three early tip-off games on Wednesday, two-time Basketball Champions League winners La Laguna Tenerife did what they do best, win a tough road game despite playing shorthanded.
Even without the last year's BCL Season MVP, Marcelinho Huertas, and with coach Txus Vidorreta ejected in the first half, Tenerife still controlled the pace of the game, claiming their fifth win in six games against Karsiyaka, 87-76.
This marks the first matchup between these two teams to be decided by a double-digit margin.
The Tenerife system stays the same. Bruno Fitipaldo took on Marcelinho's role and had 16 points with 5 assists, Fran Guerra channeled his inner Giorgi Shermadini with 20 points on 6-of-7 shooting from the field and 8-of-9 from the charity stripe, while there's also a new Kyle Guy guy for Tenerife.
His name is Payton Willis, and he knocked down three threes to finish with 19 points off the bench.
Errick McCollum scored a team-high 16 for Karsiyaka.
Tenerife shared the minutes between 11 players, spreading the scoring through nine men. ERA Nymburk hit copy-paste to their road game against Promitheas Patras in Greece, winning 86-78.
The Czech champs had four men in double digits, Nighael Ceaser reigning on the floor with 16 points in less than 16 minutes. Stephen Brown scored 15, JT Shumate put up 12, while Christian Bishop had a number of highlight plays en route to 12 points and 5 rebounds.
Darius Perry scored 18 points off the bench for Promitheas.
It seems that we will see a different Nymburk side compared to their last two BCL seasons, and the same goes for Igokea m:tel. The champions of Bosnia and Herzegovina held off Nanterre 92 with an 86-80 win at home.
It was Igokea's first BCL win since 2022, when they went 3-3 in the Regular Season, but lost the Play-Ins 2-0 to Hapoel Holon to start 2023. Later that year, they had an 0-6 record in the following Regular Season.
Bryce Jones had 18 points to lead the way, Dragan Milosavljevic scored 15, while Borisa Simanic came up big with 14 points in only his third game back since the horrid injury at the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023.
Frank Jackson put up 20 for Nanterre 92, but they shot 7-of-28 from the three-point range, nowhere near enough to compete with Igokea's 12-of-23 from the same distance.