Hapoel Jerusalem’s Eurocup hole deepens

Hapoel Jerusalem continued to lose ground in Eurocup regular season Group B on Wednesday night, falling to a 0-3 record after losing 91-83 to Bayern Munich at the Jerusalem Arena.

With the regular season consisting of 10 games for each team, and with four of the group’s six sides to advance to the Top 16, Jerusalem still has plenty of time to make amends.

However, it was reminded once more on Wednesday how far it still has to go to become a contender for the title, the target set by the club at the start of the season after reaching the semifinals last term.

After losing to Lietkabelis Panevezys by 14 points in Lithuania in its opener and then falling to two straight home defeats to Buducnost of Montenegro and Bayern, Hapoel has left itself with little room for error in the remainder of the campaign.

Jerusalem visits Reggio Emilia in Italy next week before playing two consecutive games at home against Galatasaray of Turkey and Panevezys.

With Bayern and Buducnost at 3-0 and already holding a three-game HAPOEL JERUSALEM forward Austin Daye frustratingly walks to the bench after fouling out during last night’s 91-83 defeat to Bayern Munich in Eurocup action, with the American’s 28 points not enough for the Israeli champion to pick up its first victory. lead on Hapoel, the Israeli champion looks set to battle with Reggio Emilia, Galatasaray and Panevezys for the two remaining tickets to the next round.

It will have to first and foremost improve on the way it begins the second half after being outscored by a combined 35 points in the third quarters of its first three contests.

Jerusalem was outplayed by Bayern from the start on Wednesday, with the Germans outscoring the hosts 31-12 in the first 10 minutes. Hapoel closed to within 12 points (51-39) at the break, but once more left itself with far too much to do in the fourth quarter, with Bayern leading by a record 23 points (78-55). To its credit, Jerusalem continued to fight and cut the deficit to six points (85-79) with 1:14 minutes remaining, thanks in large to Austin Daye, who scored 17 of his game-high 28 points in the fourth frame. But Daye fouled out just as Jerusalem came within striking distance and Bayern closed out the win.

“The beginning of the game was something I wasn’t expecting,” said Jerusalem coach Fotis Katsikaris. “But we have to believe and play hard like we did in the last quarter. This is what we have to do from the beginning of the game. We know what we are capable of doing. We proved today that we can play hard defense but we have to do it from the beginning. I know it is frustrating for everybody, but I’m very optimistic because we showed that we can play aggressive basketball and good defense. Our goal now is to continue doing that and doing it from the beginning of the game.”

Richard Howell added 13 points and seven rebounds for Hapoel, which hit just 22-of-37 free-throw attempts (59.5%).

“Our defensive intensity and our focus wasn’t there in the beginning of the game,” said a disgruntled Daye before calling out his teammates. “It has to start in the beginning of the day in shootaround that everyone needs to be focused and know the right things to do in defense. Those little mistakes can’t happen in the beginning of the game. We put ourselves in a deep hole. We can come back from a situation like that, but that is very difficult.”

Vladimir Lucic led five Munich players in double figures with 16 points.

Also Wednesday, Hapoel Holon dropped to 0-3 in the FIBA Champions League, losing 71-69 at Juventus Utena in Lithuania. Joe Alexander and TaShawn Thomas had 18 points each for Holon, which was coming off its first BSL win of the campaign. The Champions League regular season consists of 14 games and four of the eight teams in the group will advance to the round of 16.