Fenerbahce 73-82 Barça: Regular season champions!
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Fenerbahce 73-82 Barça: Regular season champions!

A hard fought victory in Istanbul means Barça will be the top seeded team in the Euroleague quarter finals

A fabulous victory in Turkey against Fenerbahçe Beko  (73-82) means Barça have confirmed top spot in the Euroleague Regular Season with a game in hand. It means they’ll play the eighth ranked team in the quarter finals, and will have home court advantage in the best-of-five series.

But the win in Istanbul did not come easy. The home side were the early leaders at 17-11, although three almost consecutive threes from Kuric meant Barça led at the end of the high-scoring opening period.

Kuric, Higgins, Westermann and Calathes all scored 3-pointers while the defending was much better as Barça went in for the interval leading by five.

But a 14-4 streak for the home team tipped the balance the other way after the restart. It took some fine scoring from Westermann to turn the momentum around against his former club, and the Catalans had the edge at 58-62 going into the final ten minutes.

Hanga scored five in a row to send Barça to +10, with Davies also peaking as the game went in to the zone of no return for the Turks and Barça could celebrate being crowned the best team in Europe in the opening stage of Europe’s premier club competition.

Barça are 24-9 with one game stuill to play against Bayern Munich, and as thinsg stand, it looks like Real Madrid, Zenit St Petersburg, Baskonia or Valencia Basket will be their rivals in the playoffs for a place at the Final Four.

MATCH STATS

Fenerbahçe: Guduric (19), Mahmutoglu (3), De Colo (12), Vesely (2), Duverioglu (-). Brown (2), O'Quinn (17), Biberovic (-), Pierre (10), Barthel (5), Sipahi (-), Eddie (3). 
Barça: Calathes (5), Higgins (9), Abrines (4), Mirotic (12), Oriola (2). Davies (13), Westermann (9), Hanga (5), Bolmaro (-), Smits (4), Kuric (16), Claver (3).
Periods: 25-26 / 42-47 / 58-62 / 73-82
Referees: Lottermoser, Koromilas, Peerandi

Força Barça
Força Barça

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