 A late takeover run on the road supplied a crucial first win of the season as Cholet Basket surprised host Dynamo Moscow 64-72 in Group F on Tuesday. Cholet is now 1-1 and will be tied for second place while Dynamo, a former competition champion and a Final Eight team last spring, dropped to 0-2. After not having led for the entire game, Cholet used a 5-22 takeover run over 6 minutes in the middle of the fourth quarter to change the look of things for both teams. Late signing Mickael Gelabale gave the visitors their first lead, 56-59, after 37 minutes, while Antywane Robinson and Arvydas Eitutavicius made sure to preserve a strong margin at the finish. Eitutavicius paced the winners with 20 points, while Robinson added 17 and Sammy Mejia 12. For Dynamo, which struggled to score as Cholet surged, Sergey Bykov scored 20 points and Sergey Monya 15, but no one else made it out of double figures.
Alexey Savrasenko inside and Bykov at the arc shot Dynamo ahead 5-0. Eitutavicius replied from long-distance to start Cholet's scoring, but Monya matched him as Dynamo left the visitors behind. Dimitry Domani added 5 pionts as Dynamo's lead reached 15-5 as only a dunk by Gelabale went through for Cholet. Savrasenko took over from there as only Eitutavicius could score for the guests, although Mejia got his first basket to limit the damage to 21-12 after 10 minutes. Eitutavicius broke a long dry spell at the start of the second quarter with free throws before Mejia dropped a big triple to get the visitors within 23-16. Monya and Dimitry Khovostov held the Dynamo lead before Fabien Causeur's three-point play and Robinson's second basket of the quarter made it 27-24. Monya and Savrasenko kept Dynamo from losing any more ground as Gelabale's free throw got Cholet to within 31-28 at hlaftime.
 Yuri Vasilyev and Bykov came out smoking with 7 unanswered points to start the second half by giving Dynamo another double-digit lead, 38-28. Mejia helped Cholet rebound with 4 consecutive points before Causeur and Robinson cut it further, to 42-36. Monya stopped Dynamo's slide with a triple, but Eitutavicius matched him and added a two-pointer to make it 45-41. Eitutavicius answered a dunk by Monya with another basket, but Bykov was back with the last of the third quarter to keep Dynamo up 50-44. Dynamo tried to surge ahead again on Vasilyev's dunk and Monya's triple at 55-46, early in the fourth, but Cholet wasn't going away. Robinson matched that triple, Randal Falker added 4 points and then Causeur launched a strike from downtown to suddenly tie it up, 56-56, halfway through the final quarter. The scoring stalled for a tense 2 minutes, but when it did, so did Cholet's run, which stretched to 1-13 as Gelabale's three-point play supplied the visitors' very first lead, 56-59, with 3 minutes left. While Dynamo got only single free throws from Savrasenko and Bykov, Robinson took over with a three-point play and 1 of 2 free throws to put Cholet up 58-63. Domani made 2 free throws going into the final minute, drawing Gelabale's fifth foul, but Eitutavicius stepped in and blasted a triple at 60-66 that was all Cholet needed to assure a big comeback on the road for its first win in Group B!
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Eurocupbasketball.com
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