Antwerp Rout AEK 103-76 After Trailing at Halftime in Athens

By Taki Panos

Twenty minutes of good basketball, then twenty minutes nobody in yellow and black will want to rewatch. AEK led Antwerp Giants 50-48 at halftime on Wednesday night, then lost 103-76 at the SUNEL Arena in Ano Liosia in the second round of the Basketball Champions League group stage, as Gazzetta, Novasports and Eurohoops all reported. The Belgians won the second half 55-26, and the final score did not flatter them one bit.

For readers just catching up, AEK play in Group C of the Basketball Champions League under coach Dragan Sakota. They opened the group with a win, so this defeat drops them to 1-1, while Antwerp move to 2-0 and sit alone on top. The domestic season has been a mixed bag too. AEK were routed 88-58 by Aris at Nick Galis Hall earlier this month, then bounced back last weekend when Larentzakis hit late threes to beat Mykonos 84-79. This was supposed to be the night that built on that.

The first quarter actually looked promising. Antwerp scored the first five points, but AEK answered with an 8-0 run through Landers Nolley II, Dimitris Flionis and Derrick Williams to lead 12-7, per Novasports. Nolley finished one drive with a dunk for 21-14, and the arena was loud. Then Nijel Pack hit three threes in quick succession to put the visitors back in front, and the quarter ended 25-25. In hindsight, that little burst from Pack was a warning sign.

The second quarter was a proper back-and-forth contest, with the lead changing hands again and again. Greg Brown III gave AEK some energy, Giorgos Tsalmpouris tied it at 38-38, and Nelly Joseph scored the last basket of the half for a 50-48 lead. Nolley was the story of that half, with 17 points in under 14 minutes according to the competition's own highlights, as Gazzetta noted. AEK shot 14 of 20 inside the arc and 4 of 8 from three before the break, Gazzetta added. Fine numbers. They did not last.

The third quarter is where it all came apart. Kevin Tumba tied the game at 50-50, Nolley scored four straight points, and then Antwerp ran off 13 unanswered points, Novasports reported. Back-to-back threes from Noel Coleman and Pack made it 69-56. AEK briefly cut it to seven at 69-62, but a string of turnovers handed Antwerp a 7-0 run to close the period at 76-62. The Belgians won that quarter 28-12, per thetoc, and the mood inside the building changed completely.

There was no fourth-quarter rescue. Enoch Cheeks hit a corner three for 85-68 around the 33rd minute, as both Gazzetta and Novasports described it, and from there Antwerp were simply playing with confidence while AEK looked out of answers on both ends of the floor. The visitors kept scoring, the lead kept growing, and the last few minutes felt more like a procession than a contest. When the horn went, it was 103-76, a 27-point loss on home floor.

Antwerp deserve real credit, because this was a complete team performance. Pack led them with 20 points and hit five of his six threes, according to the box score published by Gazzetta. Cheeks added 17 points and 13 rebounds, Coleman scored 16, Vincent Kesteloot had 15 and Joel Murray chipped in 13 with eight assists. That is five players in double figures, Novasports pointed out, and it is very hard to defend a team when the ball keeps finding an open shooter.

On the AEK side, Nolley was the one player who came out of the night with his reputation intact. He scored 23 points on 8 of 14 inside the arc and 4 of 4 at the line, with five rebounds, per thetoc and Gazzetta. Brown added 11, but the guards had a tough evening. Giannoulis Larentzakis went 0 for 5 from three, Dimitris Katsivelis made one of his seven shots, and Joseph went 0 for 6 from the free throw line, the box score showed.

Some context matters here. AEK were short-handed, with Novasports describing a team hit by many absences, and Gazzetta reporting that Thomas Heurtel and two other players were out injured. It was also a heavy day for Greek basketball off the court, coming just hours after federation president Vangelis Liolios was arrested in a bribery probe. Gazzetta wrote that some AEK fans booed the team at the final buzzer, which tells you how the performance landed with the home crowd.

The wider picture in Group C is not a disaster, yet. Eurohoops listed Antwerp at 2-0, with Szombathely and AEK both 1-1 and Salon Vilpas 0-2 after round two. It was AEK's first home loss of the season, as thetoc and Novasports both noted, and the bigger problem is the margin. If the group comes down to head-to-head results with Antwerp, a 27-point gap is a lot to claw back in the return game.

My take: one bad half does not define a season, and AEK were missing important pieces. But the way this one unravelled should worry Sakota more than the result itself. A two-point halftime lead turned into a 27-point loss in twenty minutes, with turnovers and slow defensive rotations doing most of the damage. Nolley cannot carry the scoring alone every night, and the guards need to look much sharper than this. The good news is that there is time to fix it.

Next up in Europe, AEK face Hungary's Falco Szombathely on Wednesday, November 18, at 7:00 PM Athens time in round three of the group, Novasports reported. That game now feels a lot more important than it did on Wednesday morning. For more Greek basketball, football and beyond, keep an eye on our Greek Sports section. The Queen needs a response, and quickly.

Sources: Gazzetta, Novasports, Eurohoops, thetoc.

Image: Yellow flag with a black double-headed eagle in AEK colors by Kanchelskis, cropped, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).