Gran Canaria became the first team to earn a berth in the next stage of the 7DAYS EuroCup when it defeated the London Lions 57-60 at the Copperbox on Tuesday night. With its sixth in a row, the Spanish team improved to 10-2 in Group B to maintain the best record in the competition.
This victory confirmed Gran Canaria's status as a top contender; it is unbeaten against every team between second and fifth place Group B. Gran Canaria’s only losses came against Promitheas Patras in Round 2 (93-82), and against Dolomiti Energia Trento in Round 6 (75-72). All of the other teams have tasted the strength of Coach Jaka Lakovic’s team, which now has a two-win lead over the teams directly behind it in the standings, Turk Telekom Ankara and Hapoel Vegan Friendly Tel Aviv.
That gives Gran Canaria a great chance of finishing atop the group at the end of the regular season although Lakovic is not overthinking or overvaluing his team’s current position: "We didn’t have any expectations [at the beginning of the season] of what was going to happen," he said in the post-game press conference.
"We just wanted to play game by game, focus on each game at a time. At the end of Round 18, we will see what happens and where we stay at. Right now, we are in a good position, but there are still six games to go, and we still have to play against Turk Telekom Ankara and still against Hapoel in Tel Aviv. The calendar is the same for everybody and we have to go on, and focus on the next one."