London Lions’ coach James Vear is looking for his side to finish their FIBA Europe Cup campaign with a victory when Bakken Bears are the visitors to the Copper Box on Wednesday evening.
“It’s our final European game of the season, and we’re expecting another big crowd, so of course we want to finish the competition with a victory” said the Lions’ play-caller.
Tip-off is 7.30pm with Lions expecting another exciting night of European action at the Olympic Park, and tickets can be purchased here.
Lions started the competition with five straight victories to qualify for the second group stage but have found the going tougher since then – not helped by facing favourites Avtodor Sartov – and will be looking for their first win in the second stage.
Bears are also out of contention for the quarter-final spot, and with their postponed game against Saratov yet to be played they head into the game with a 1-3 record. January’s game between the sides in Denmark saw Bears win 95-80 despite 18 points and eight assists from Isaiah Reese.
While he hopes his side will wrap up a European campaign which sees them play their 13th game against continental opposition, Vear knows that it won’t be easy against the Danish side: “Bakken will be a tough opponent, they’re regular competitors in Europe and they know what to do at this level” he said.
“It would be disappointing not to finish with a win, but I think people under-estimate how good they are. They’ve nearly beaten Saratov and Bahceshir, losing each game by a point, so they’re a very good team and we need to be at our absolute best to pick up a win.”
Vear has a good idea of what to expect from the Danes when they arrive at the Copper Box:
“I know their coach from some courses we’ve both done and I’ve coached against him before. They beat us pretty comfortably before, so we’ll need to make some adjustments."
“They’re different to the other teams in the group in that they’re very balanced and have a number of players who can hurt you on any given night. Richard Evans has played at a high level in college while [Jarred Ogunbemi] Jackson is a top quality guard and [Darko] Jukic has been in Denmark since I was there and has bags of experience.”
Ogunbemi-Jackson leads the Bears in both scoring and assists with 16ppg and 5.7 assists, adding 1.3 steals. Jukc pulls down a team-high 5.6 rebounds to go with his 10.6 points, while Evans adds 14.9 points, 5.4 boards and 2.2 assists.
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