Hapoel Tel Aviv defeated Virtus Bologna 90-81 as the reds rallied from a dozen points down at half-time to notch the win at their home away from home in Sofia, Bulgaria and move their record to 5-2 in Euroleague action. After a close opening quarter, the Italians pulled away as Marcus Carr, Derrick Alston and Tommaso Baldasso scored to give Alex Mumbru’s team a 48-36 lead at halftime. However, Dimitrios Itoudis’s squad came roaring back in the second half as Zach LeDay, Vaislije Micic, Elijah Bryant and Tai Odiase all scored to take the lead by the end of the third quarter and cruise to the victory.

LeDay led the way with a 22 point and 10 rebound double-double, Micic added 16 points, Odiase scored 13 points and Bryant put in 12 points in the win while Alston and Aliou Diarra both had 12 points as Baldasso and Carr each had 10 points in the loss.

Dimitrios Itoudis talked about the win, “We saw a game with two different halves, We came to play a casual game and did not compete in the first half. Bologna crashed the boards and ran and were dominant and deserved to have the lead in the first half. We witnessed a different team in the second half and we said we need to compete. We became bigger, went to get the rebounds, made baskets and had a big run. It was also very important to have the depth on the bench.”

Alex Mumbru spoke about the defeat, “This was two games in one as we controlled the rhythm of the offense and played well on defense in the first quarter but we knew Hapoel would come back and they punished us in the third quarter and we didn’t find our rhythm in what was totally different than the first half. We were not ready in the first few minutes of the second half to still be in the game.”

Zach LeDay and Derrick Alston traded baskets to get the game underway as each side had a run of their own ending up with Bologna taking a 25-23 led after ten minutes of play. Amir Coffey hit his free throws for Hapoel Tel Aviv top open the second quarter, but Alston kept scoring while Tommaso Baldasso and Marcus Carr also found points to bump up the lead to double digits. Vasilije Micic and Dan Oturu tried to keep the reds close but the Italians ended the half with a 48-36 advantage.

Tai Odiase, Elijah Bryant and Micic quickly helped Hapoel go on a 17-5 run to tie the game up at 53-53 midway through the third quarter while Bryant and LeDay continued to score to give the Reds a 66-62 lead after thirty minutes of action. Odiase kept pouring in the points, LeDay went from the inside and outside, Carr and Baldasso tried to keep Bologna close Aliou Diarra and Wendell Moore kept cutting down the lead but a Micic triple put the exclamation mark on the win.

Also in Bulgaria, Bnei Herzliya came up short Porto 86-74 to drop their Basketball Champions League Group H record to 0-2. Yehu Orland’s team went down 47-29 at halftime but made a valiant comeback in the third quarter with DJ Brewton (24 points) leading the way, however, it wasn’t enough to top the Portuguese side paced by James Woodard (17 points) and Corey Allen-Williams (15 points).

Yehu Orland spoke about the defeat, “We took the loss, we didn’t have enough assists and we didn’t shoot the ball well enough while they did. We said that they could hurt us on the 3-pointers and they did. We need to get better and we will move forward I can promise that next game will be better.”