Catch up an eventful Gameday 4 in the EuroLeague:
Group A
It took one week of adapting, but we can now say that Natasha Howard is back for Fenerbahçe. Her 21 points against Beretta Famila Schio, on 90-percent shooting, carried the Turkish team. Howard handled the scoring along with Emma Meesseman, who went 11-for-16 from the floor and grabbed nine boards. The two bigs made up for the bad shooting night from the rest of the team.
Of note was a great playmaking performance by Yvonne Anderson, who dished out eight assists, tying her season high from the previous week. (On the morning of that game, we had a chance to talk to Yvonne; look out for that interview dropping in the next couple of days.)
In the closest game of the day, Zaragoza barely beat ASVEL thanks to a controversial call in the closing seconds. With three seconds left in the game, Julie Allemand released a 3 after coming off a screen by center Sandrine Gruda. Before the ball went through the basket, the referees called a foul on Gruda, who, according to them, bumped into Tanaya Atkinson.
The former Temple Owl fell to the floor, intelligently selling the physical contact. The referees took their time looking at the replay, but their decision remained unchanged—Allemand’s basket did not count. Zaragoza had the two-point lead and the ball with two seconds left on the clock. The deciding play summed up another great individual performance by Atkinson, who finished the game with 16 points and five rebounds.
Group A scores:
Valencia Basket (Spain) 68, ACS Sepsi SIC (Romania) 57
Fenerbahçe Alagöz Holding (Turkey) 90, Beretta Famila Schio (Italy) 64
Casademont Zaragoza (Spain) 67, LDLC ASVEL Féminin (France) 64
DVTK HUN-Therm (Hungary) 74, AZS UMCS Lublin (Poland) 44
Group B
Prior to Gameday 4, four teams remained winless. That number now drops to three after UNI Győr beat French Basket Landes. The Hungarians won in large part thanks to Destiny Slocum. The 5-foot-11 guard scored 26 points, some of them in spectacular fashion as she both shot from long distance and stormed the basket. She was not the only one making difficult baskets that night. At times, the game looked like a trick-shot contest, the results of which you can see below.
The other French team in the group, Villeneuve, ended Bologna’s three-game winning streak. The No. 3 pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft, Lauren Cox, enjoyed her best game of the season with 12 points and five rebounds. But the performance of the 6-foot-4 center was not enough to beat the home team; she simply did not have enough support. One of the best players on Villeneuve was Kamiah Smalls. The Philly-born shooting guard had 13 points and five rebounds. Every member of the French starting five scored in double-digits.
Group B scores:
Çukurova Basketbol Mersin (Turkey) 77, BC Polkowice (Poland) 57
Villeneuve d’Ascq LM (France) 78, Virtus Segafredo Bologna (Italy) 62
SERCO UNI Győr (Hungary) 79, Basket Landes (France) 66
ZVVZ Usk Praha (Czech Republic) 64, Perfumerias Avenida (Spain) 53