Zalakeramia ZTE KK made a first big step towards semifinals. They overcame GTK Gliwice 114:93 at home and are in a very good position for next weeks re-match.

Zalakeramia ZTE KK vs. GTK Gliwice
114:93 (27:18, 24:28, 31:20)

Referees: Tamás Boros, Kálmán Tóth, Róbert Esztergályos (all HUN).
Audience: 500.
Venue: Zalakerámia Sport- és Rendezvénycsarnok, Zalaegerszeg (HUN).

Scorers Zalakeramia ZTE KK: Thompson 32, Bellot-Green 17, Durázi 15, Szabó 14, Ware 14, Agafonov 9, Bagó 8, Farkas 3, Gulyás 2.

Scorers GTK Gliwice: Morgan 20, Washington 18, Mack 14, LaChance 9, Szlachetka 9, Piechowicz 7, Dloniak 6, Kiwilsza 4, Radwanski 2, Robak 2, Slupinski 2.

Gallery & Statistics

Zalakerámia ZTE KK hosted Polish team, GTK Gliwice in the quarterfinals of Alpe Adria Cup on Wednesday evening with 10 supporters behind them who came all the way from Poland.

The host immediately took the initiative with Bernard Thompson’s three-pointer. Dustin Ware added 3 more, along with new Canadian player, Tyrell Bellot-Green. However, Gliwice answered with four points in a row. After the time-out from the Hungarians, the young players of ZTE scored a few points, which gave a credit to the first quarter ending with 27-18.

Thompson went on with being the most effective player on court, but Mack and Washington helped their team to lower the deficit. Gliwice played much better in this period of the match and forced ZTE to many turnovers. Riley scored a buzzer-beater three, which helped the Polish team to come up to 51-46 after the second quarter.

It was Thompson again with the opener, and Szabó scored from 7 meters, too. On the other side it was Maverick Morgan who managed to catch up with ZTE. With Ware’s buzzer-three ZTE gained a 16-point lead by the help of fastbreaks.

The last ten minutes on the parquet were not about defence on any side. The youngest player on court from ZTE, Attila Farkas got a block and a buzzer-three under just one minute, which made the fans gave him a standing ovation. ZTE’s offense was unstoppable, but Gliwice also woke up in offense and scored 27 points in the last quarter. However, ZTE managed to overscore them, and finished with 114 points – along with 10 three-pointers. ZTE had a 21-point lead in the end, which is quite a big advantage for them before the rematch in Poland.

Bernard Thompson was the most effective player of ZTE with 32 points – 5 three-pointers -, 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 4 fouls against. From the Polish team, American forward, Maverick Morgan finished the game with 20 points and 11 rebounds – without any missed opportunities.

The rematch will take place on 26th February in Poland.

Tamás Bencze, head coach of ZTE KK: “I am very pleased with our offense, as we scored 114 points with an extra performance coming from Bernard Thompson. We had ups and downs in the first half, and he was always a saviour. However I am not happy with our defense as we got 46 points in the first half and 47 in the second. This is too much and we need to control this for next week. The difference was not as big between the two teams, so we need to focus on next week’s game as they will be on home court and I’m sure they will fight until the last moment to come back and get to the semifinals.”

Attila Farkas, player of ZTE KK: “This game was really rich in points. We tried to play just as our coach asked us to do in offense. However, in defense we did not manage to give our best tonight. We could not stop their two small Americans and we did not use the fouls effectively.”

Pawel Turkiewicz, head coach of Gliwice: “First of all congratulations to ZTE, they played very well, especially in the second half. However, we gave them a lot of chances to score easy points. 114 points is way too much to get. We did not communicate in defense. We want to fight in the second match, so we would like to give a much better performance next week. We also lost rebounding which can not happen on home court.”

Maverick Morgan, player of Gliwice: “ZTE scored 63 points in the second half, which does not praise our defense…We need to play better defense at home. Offensively we did not make a lot og threes in the first half and continued with a lot of mistakes in the second, as well. However, this should not have effected our defense at all.”