Virtus Bologna capture EuroCup crown

Virtus Bologna became the first Italian side to win the EuroCup with an 80-67 win over Bursaspor in the final.

The win guarantees Bologna’s spot in next season’s EuroLeague, joining fellow Italian side, Milano as Europe’s premier club league will have two teams from Italy for the first time since the 2015-16 campaign.

Milos Teodosic – a EuroLeague winner with CSKA Moscow in that very season – paced Bologna with 21 points, claiming the MVP accolade in the process, as they raced to an early double-digit lead in front of their home fans and never looked back.

Mam Jaiteh, who won EuroCup regular season MVP, scored 13 points for the winners.

“It was a really, really great competition, this EuroCup basketball level was so high,” said Bologna coach, Sergio Scariolo.

“So many great teams didn’t make it and we hanged in when we had to with a lot of injuries in the first part of the season, but we built up our chemistry, our cohesiveness and we finally got healthy and put a couple of new players in I think we had a great last three months of the competition and we honestly deserved the trophy.”

Bursaspor, competing in just their second season in the EuroCup fought back in the third quarter. Unfortunately, despite their heroics in the competition all season long, were always playing catch up.

David Dudzinski led Bursaspor with 14 points.

Photo: EuroCup Basketball