London Lions downed in Tel Aviv in EuroCup opener

Image Credit: London Lions

London Lions were downed 76-59 by Hapoel Tel Aviv in a tough EuroCup opener on Tuesday evening in Israel.

Star player Sam Dekker went down with an ankle injury after playing just 5 minutes and did not return, to make an already tough ask even more difficult in front of a raucous crowd of 3,500.

An abysmal 4-of-26 shooting from 3-point range sealed their fate, as they went down 9-0 to open the game, and did not score their first field goal until over four minutes in.

Tomislav Zubcic scored 21 points to go with 7 rebounds to lead London, Kosta Koufos had a double-double with 14 points and 9 rebounds while Vojtech Hruban had 7.

“Disappointed,” Lions Head Coach Ryan Schmidt said after the game.

“I don’t think we handled the moment very well, obviously losing Sam (Dekker) hurt us quite a bit. The lack of execution at both ends was pretty disappointing. It was our first EuroCup game, it was a hell of environment to play in. We’ll be good, we’ll be fine, I thought there were some times we did some good things but we gotta put longer stretches together though.”

Tel Aviv were led by 19 points and 5 assists from J’covan Brown, along with 11 from Xavier Munford.

Lions have little time for rest as they take on Surrey Scorchers in BBL action on Friday night, before having their EuroCup home debut next Tuesday against Italian side Trento at the Copper Box from 19:30.

Box score.

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