It wasn't all smooth sailing for Marko Barac’s men, yet they still did enough to get the win
Bahcesehir recovers from early struggles in Hamburg to improve perfect record
Game Report
3 Mins read
Regular Season
Round 3 of 18
Regular Season
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Veolia Towers HamburgHAM
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Bahcesehir College IstanbulBKS
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Overview
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It was a tale of two halves at Inselpark Arena on Tuesday night, when Bahcesehir College Istanbul fought back to overcome Veolia Towers Hamburg 85-106. The win took the visitors to 3-0 in BKT EuroCup while the lowly Hamburg fell to 0-3.
After an incredibly cagey start to the contest, eventually both teams settled in and went back-and-forth throughout the first half. Hamburg fouled its way into trouble early on, meaning Bahcesehir kept itself in the contest from the free-throw line. By the time the teams broke for halftime, the hosts were head by three points (45-42), partly due to a 7% three-point shooting performance from Bahcesehir throughout the half.
It was clear as the third quarter began that Marko Barac’s team had reset, and they came back swinging. Malachi Flynn went into takeover mode, capitalizing on Hamburg’s foul trouble and punishing the hosts further at the line. Flynn, who recently shared his aspirations of EuroCup glory, opened up a double-digit lead for the road team and after that there was no way back for the Towers, who struggled mightily with turnovers.
“The way we entered the second half was different to the first, we showed much more energy defensively and in rebounding,” Barac said. “Obviously, we have a lot of quality and when we play with this kind of energy we are on a good way.”
The energy shift was certainly apparent. The Turkish team scored 60 points in the second half to secure the win. Capitalizing on the German side’s carelessness, Bahcesehir recorded 27 points off turnovers and as a result, 17 fast-break points throughout. Caleb Homesley joined Flynn in scoring 21, but also logged 3 boards and 4 assists. Tyler Cavanaugh led the way, however, putting in a tremendously versatile performance that results in a 16, 7 & 5 stat line.
“Any time you win on the road in EuroCup it’s huge,” Cavanagh said. “This Hamburg team is much better than their record, they play fast, they’re very aggressive and score a lot of points. We weren’t very focused defensively in the first half, but we were able to pick that up in the second half, it was a good second 20 minutes for us.
“The coaches always preach fast-break points and points off turnovers. We have a lot of guys on defense that create deflections, are aggressive on the ball and we were able to turn that into points tonight.”
The result was tough on Hamburg, which wouldn’t go down without a fight but ultimately couldn’t handle the rejuvenated Bahcesehir in the second half. Head coach Benka Barloschsky was proud of how his team fought in the first two quarters, but thought the third was when his men lost control of the contest.
“In the third quarter, Istanbul started to punish us with technical elements, we tried to adjust and we did, but we couldn’t keep up the scoring on the other side,” Barloschsky shared. “We couldn’t generate the same looks that we could before, Istanbul was scoring too easily and they didn’t allow us to run the same way.”
Hamburg remains winless after three rounds and will face Neptunas Klaipeda next week. Bahcesehir, meanwhile, will hope to continue its perfect start to the season when it hosts Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana.
