The German side missed a chance to seal its postseason berth with a game to spare
Bahcesehir left Ulm’s playoff fate hanging in the balance

Bahcesehir College Istanbul rolled on with its fifth win in the last six games to cement the top spot in Group A of the BTK EuroCup and improved to 14-3 after an 85-81 home win over ratiopharm Ulm as the German side slipped to 9-8.
More importantly for Ulm, it missed a chance to seal a playoff berth with a game to spare after overturning a 15-point second-half deficit, only to let a 75-76 lead slip away in the home stretch as Tai Odiase stepped up for Bahcesehir.
It would have been a big ask for Ulm to win such a tough road game under any circumstances, but the visitors will be kicking themselves in the teeth for drawing blanks when the chips were down, having roared back after trailing 51-36.
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The result means Ulm’s fate is out of its own hands, as it needs other results to go its way ahead of the final regular season round, when it hosts Hapoel Shlomo Teal Aviv. Should it fail to qualify, Ulm may well be haunted by an 82-85 home loss to Buducnost Voli Podgorica and even more so by the 85-71 debacle at Dolomiti Energia Trento in the previous two games, with the Italian side out of contention.
Ulm’s head coach Ty Harrelson rued the missed opportunity but lauded his team's valiant second-half effort.
“I am proud of my team the way we came back in the second half. Unfortunately, we didn’t make the plays in the last minute and a half or so and that made the difference,” Harrelson said in his postgame comments. “The home team showed their composure and their experience when the game got tight and that’s something for us to learn from.”
Bahcesehir had more in the tank in the last few minutes and Odiase, who paced the Turkish side with a game-high 22 points, highlighted that it was his team’s defense that made the difference in a dramatic finish.
“They are a really good team in transition but we stuck to our defensive principles and got the win,” Odiase said. “We turned the ball over a bit too many times but we were able to keep our composure down the stretch,” he added.
Bahcesehir head coach Dejan Radonjic was pleased after his team dug deep to keep its perfect home record intact, despite already being assured of finishing top of the group and thus clinching an automatic quarterfinal berth.
“It was a tough game against a very good opponent full of young and talented players,” the Montenegrin tactician said. ”They play in a specific way but defensively we did a lot of good things, especially in the first half. We lacked energy in the last 10 minutes, but we did enough to win the game.”