U18 FC Barcelona never struggled in gathering a convincing 59-84 victory over U18 Olympiacos Piraeus to improve to 2-0 in Group A of the Euroleague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament Patras.
Barcelona never challenged in win over Olympiacos
The 2016 continental champion led by 15 points in the first quarter and never looked back in setting up a showdown with fellow 2-0 side U18 Maccabi Tel Aviv for a spot in Sunday’s first place game. Teodor Simic was Barcelona’s top scorer with 20 points while Martin Iglesias scored 16 points, Aaron Ganal had 12 points, Daniel Iruela tallied 10 points and Rafa Villar collected 10 points, 5 rebounds, 11 assists and 6 steals for a performance index rating of 32. Olympiacos lost its second straight game despite Thomas Zorbas picking up 16 points and Michael Sprintzios scoring 10 points.
Barcelona scored the first six points of the game before Sprintzios’ free throw for Olympiacos. Iglesias added two scores and Barcelona was ahead 5-13. After an Apostolos Nikolaidis three-pointer made it 10-15, Iglesias poured in six more points in a 2-12 surge for a 12-27 advantage, which was 19-29 after 10 minutes. Barcelona started the second quarter with a 2-11 run and the cushion swelled to 18-40. And the Spanish side added 10 straight points later in the period and led 24-50 at halftime.
Olympiacos came out of the locker room with a better start but still could only get the deficit to 33-55. Barcelona stepped it up with 10 straight points for a 32-point lead and was ahead 43-76 after 30 minutes. Nothing really changed in the fourth quarter as Barcelona’s reserves were also too strong for Olympiacos to really make a dent in the gap.