Joventut Badalona trashed the no. 1 team in France
Joventut Badalona continued its impressive season on Tuesday night with an easy home win over French side Metropolitans in Round 7 of the EuroCup.
The guests from Levallois, coached by legendary Vincent Collet arrived in Spain with high hopes, as they also have an amazing season. Metropolitans currently lead the French LNB standings with a 10-1 record, which is a big performance considering that France has two EuroLeague teams after a very long time and teams like Strasbourg or Dijon also have good results so far in the Basketball Champions League group stage. Collet’s team had a 3-3 record in the EuroCup before yesterday’s game, and with the current format of the EuroCup, they still have very good chances of advancing to the playoffs.
Joventut Badalona however is on a different level and they showed this yesterday. The Catalan team won all four quarters and the game was practically won already after the first 20 minutes, Joventut leading by 18 points at halftime. The second half was a bit more balanced, but Carles Duran and his team were always in control of the game and they won 86-63 in the end. 10 players out of the 11 that stepped on the court for Badalona scored at least 3 points (Guillem Vives did not play and Albert Ventura was the only one who did not score). Veteran Pau Ribas finished as the leading scorer for Penya with 17 points, followed by Vladimir Brodziansky with 13. Interestingly, Metropolitans gave the two best PIR performances: Will Cummings finished the game with a PIR of 25 and his teammate Vince Hunter had 21. However, the other players didn’t contribute too much and the French side had a very poor shooting night, finishing with only 2 from 16 from the 3 point line.
With this win, Joventut has a 5-2 record and sits in 3rd place in Group A. The combination of veteran players who played at the highest level in Europe like Ribas, Tomic, Vives or Brandon Paul and the young talents that Badalona develops makes them a dangerous team for anyone in the EuroCup and the fans of Penya can be really excited about their team after a long time.
Image: EuroCup
Imre Halasz
