Basketball: Asvel wins its first Parker era Leaders’ Cup

The mid-season competition was still called Semaine des As when the Villeurbanne team won the title. This was in 2010. Twelve years later and two lost finals, Asvel enriched his record by dominating Bourg-en-Bresse (83-74) in the Saint-Chamond final. Only 7th in the Betclic Élite, one place behind JL Bourg, the Rodanians have made their experience of important meetings speak for themselves, they remain on three French titles.

Asvel never fell behind in this final. Tony’s brother T.J. Parker’s players dug a hole for themselves in the second quarter (23-8 over that period) and killed every momentum of the riot that Bourg-en-Bresse spearheaded.

Duo De Colo-Cahudi as agitators

The know-how of the champions mattered. The Lyons trailed behind MVP-elected Nando De Colo and Charles Cahudi with 20 and 13 points, respectively. “We made the game easier by defending and sharing the ball,” L’Équipe commented on the words of the second player into the microphone.

From the start of the tournament, Villeurbanne has not attracted as much as the losers of the day. Guilt of a simpler course: they defeated Victor Vembanyama’s Boulogne-Levallois (72-65) and Le Mans (90-65), two circuits decimated by injury.

In contrast, JL Bourg beat Monaco in the quarter-finals (102-92) before making short work of Dijon (94-77), who won the last edition in 2020. Wards of Frederic Fotu left the Leaders title tournament. Cup. However, they did not find the key to Asvel’s talent.