Marcus Keene drops 22 points in Strasbourg’s Dijon triumph

Sugar Mizzy February 1, 2023

By the Eurohoops team/ [email protected]

The first-ever meeting of French teams in the Basketball Champions League saw SIG Strasbourg prevail, 85-72, over JDA Dijon at the Palais des Sports Jean-Michel Geoffroy on Wednesday.

Top scorer punctuating the triumph, Marcus Keene collected 22 points, including nine in the fourth quarter of the second round of the second day. Adding seven assists and six rebounds, the former Central Michigan and Youngstown State player with plenty of saves across Europe, cemented his star status for Strasburg in his debut Champions League campaign.

Team captain DeAndre Lansdowne added 18 more points, as did Paul Lacombe with seven assists and six rebounds for an efficiency rating of 30. Bodian Massa with 14 points tied his season high.

Both sides struggled to connect beyond the arc, instead focusing inside with a combined total of 98 points recorded in the paint. Favored by the situation, Strasbourg picked up a fourth straight win in all competitions and improved to 2-0 in Group I, in a quick turnaround to jump to 10-9 in Betclic Elite LNB Pro A,

Sitting at 13-6 in the domestic league, La Jeanne fell to 1-1 in the four-team group and tied with Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem, the winner of the Israeli group match. Holding the lead for just six minutes, failing to come back from an early double-digit deficit, then falling back into a similar hole on the home stretch.

With his first bucket, David Holston overtook Miro Bilan to move into third on the Champions League all-time goalscoring list and went on to a team-high 19 points. But the veteran point guard, a former Chicago State standout, was quiet for the final ten minutes. Gavin Ware and Gregor Hrovat finished with 13 points each.

Of the January MVP candidates listed in Team of the Month, Markis McDuffie was ejected following a fight against Rodions Kurucs with 5:25 left in the first quarter. A disappointing early exit with two points to his credit. As expected, injured Chase Simon was unavailable to play in the all-French deal.

The winning team shared bad news ahead of the game by ruling out Jean-Baptiste Maille for the remainder of the 2022-23 season with a torn ACL in his left knee. The 29-year-old French guard has joined Matt Mitchell and Leo Cavaliere on Luca Banchi’s injured list. Newcomer Martin Peterka had two points, two assists, two rebounds and a steal while re-entering the BCL.