U18 Joventut Badalona remained perfect at the Euroleague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament Varese with a comfortable 54-83 victory over host side U18 Varese Academy. The 2013 continental champion finished the third quarter on a 4-19 run to improve to 2-0 in Group A and set up a showdown with U18 Next Generation Team Varese later Saturday for first place in the group.
Joventut clinches second straight win
Game Report
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Jordi Rodriguez poured in 22 points with 5 steals to lead Joventut while Aristode Dwayne and Gerard Bosch both scored 12 points and Albert Garrido had 11 points and 7 assists. Varese shot just 24.4% on two-pointers and committed 20 turnovers in dropping to 0-2 in the group. Davide Brembilla had 10 points in the loss and Karl Poom picked up 9 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists.
Carlo Cane scored the first points of the game for the hosts and Wei Zhou made it 4-4. Joventut took over the game though with a 0-18 run including three-pointers from Conrad Martinez, Rodriguez and Dwayne to lead 4-22. Brembilla snapped the nearly 7 minute scoreless stretch and Filipovic Jovan hit a buzzer-beating three-pointer as it was 9-22 after 10 minutes. Varese continued to battle and had the deficit to 16-27 but Bosch, Rodriguez and Garrido were all on target from long range and Joventut was leading 20-40 at halftime.
Rodriguez opened the second half with a three-pointer for a 23-point lead, but Varese put together a strong 9-0 run to cut the deficit to 29-43. Joventut came out of its drought thanks to three-pointers as Bosch, Garrido and Rodriguez hit from deep in a 0-11 answer to lead 29-54. And the cushion was 33-62 after 30 minutes. In the fourth quarter Poom scored seven points to help get Varese within 42-68, but Joventut stood strong and did not let the lead slip below 25 points the rest of the way.