Nando De Colo was named Final Four MVP after leading CSKA Moscow to the 2016 Turkish Airlines Euroleague championship on Sunday night at Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin, Germany. He was selected in a vote by accredited media members at the Final Four. After a record-setting semifinal, De Colo starred in overtime as CSKA outlasted Fenerbahce 96-101 to win the club’s seventh crown. He scored 10 points in the extra session, including 8 free throws without a miss. De Colo essentially sealed the win with his final 2 free throws that made it a two-possession game with 6.2 seconds left. He finished the championship game with 22 points, 7 assists and 3 steals after collecting a semifinals record 30 points in an 88-81 victory over Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar on Friday. His 52 points over the two games were the most scored by a player at a single Final Four since the turn of the century. De Colo also tied for the most fouls drawn (18) at a single Final Four. De Colo is the third player in competition history to become Final Four MVP in the same season he was named Euroleague MVP. The first two were Dimitris Diamantidis of Panathinaikos Athens in 2011 and Vassilis Spanoulis of Olympiacos Piraeus two years later. De Colo finished his second season with CSKA with averages of 19.4 points and 5 assists over 27 games.
De Colo celebrates title as Final Four MVP
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“I’m feeling great. What we did today, what we did during this Final Four, during the entire season, the team really deserves this trophy,” De Colo said during a post-game press conference. “We worked hard every day. Everybody thinks it’s easy for CSKA to wins games. But we can’t think like that. We have to think that every game is like a final and we need to be focused and we did. It’s why we won tonight because we stayed like a team even when they came back in the game. We knew when we came to overtime, we knew that we’re going to win this game. I just say thank you to the team and the coaches and all we did.”