In mid-November, the tornado Markus Howard won Asvel at the Astroballe against Vitoria (35 points, 88-81 defeat). Thursday evening in the Basque Country, Pierric Poupet’s troops fell again (94-80) in the face of an extraordinary performance. American leader Codi Miller-McIntyre scored a triple-double, the fourth in the history of the competition after the two of Nikola Vujcic (2005-2006, 2006-2007) and that of Nick Calathes (2018-2019) .
Passed by Bourg-en-Bresse in 2021, the former Wake Forest student is even the first player to deliver at least 20 assists (with 11 points and 11 rebounds). Perfect distributor for 30 minutes, Miller-McIntyre took care of the scoring in the last quarter while Asvel, without Youssoupha Fall (knee) or Nando De Colo (calf), had returned to five lengths thanks to Mike Scott (71-66, 32nd).
“CMMI” first hit a three-pointer to give Dusko Ivanovic’s players some breathing space before undermining the last vestiges of suspense on the free throw line at the end of the match. Victim of a foul by Edwin Jackson 1’19” from the final buzzer, he converted another shot to reach the 10-point mark and validate his triple-double. Asvel remains bottom while Baskonia temporarily climbs to eighth place, in the race for the play-offs.
