Two group leads spoken for after Wednesday results
Week 7 got underway on Wednesday with seven games that already left a clear picture of how the group leadership situation shapes up at the halfway mark of the regular season.
For the second week in a row, CSKA Moscow overcame injuries to keep hold of first place in Group A. Even without starters Matjaz Smodis and Alexey Savrasenko, not to mention Euroleague MVP Theodoros Papaloukas, CSKA cruised past visiting VidiVici Bolonga 79-53 as six players scored between 10 and 16 points.
CSKA is now followed in second place by Montepaschi Siena, which rallied to defeat visiting Olympiacos 86-84 on Terrell McIntyre's last-minute heroics.
Drew Nicholas and Ermal Kuqo formed an outside-inside tag team, scoring 16 and 13 points, respectively, as Efes was in complete control for the last three quarters. L. Rytas and Unicaja will share their first-place tie with either Maccabi or Aris after those teams play Thursday, while Efes will be even with the loser of that game, a victory behind the tri-leaders.
In Group C, two teams stayed tied for third place, at least, while waiting for Thursday's showdown between undefeated Panathinaikos and second-place Real Madrid to make things clearer.
Fenerbahce remains tied with AXA F.C. Barcelona, a big 80-58 winner over visiting Brose Baskets Bamberg as Mario Kasun put down 14 points for the winners.
Last but not least, the Euroleague's newest team, Chorale Roanne, broke its five-game losing streak in style by thrashing Lottomatica Roma 104-85 as Marc Salyers, Brion Rush, Adam Hess and Pape Badiane combined for 77 points.
NEMA SAMO KK KRAPINA LIVE WEBCASTING: Alex Wolff, the President of the ABA Champion Vermont Frost Heaves, wrote to Usbasket.com to introduce us the FREE WEBCASTING of all the Frost Heaves home games at www.vermontfrostheaves.com This is a very interesting move, because agents, scouts, former teammates and coaches, can follow the progress of the team players as well as the players on our opponents at no cost, and either live or with archived rebroadcasts.
Five more big games come on Thursday to close out the first half of the regular season.