EuroCup Quarterfinals, Game 1 MVP: Jalen Reynolds, Grissin Bon Reggio Emilia

With Grissin Bon Reggio Emilia hosting its first 7DAYS EuroCup Quarterfinals game in 12 years, big man Jalen Reynolds would not let the home fans go home disappointed and in the process earned the MVP honor for Game 1 on Tuesday. Reynolds had his fourth double-double of the season as Reggio Emilia downed visiting Zenit St Petersburg 75-61 to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series. Reynolds scored 19 points on 9-for-10 two-point shooting, helping Reggio Emilia equal a club record with 28 two-pointers made. Reynolds also pulled down 11 rebounds and dished 2 assists for a performance index rating of 29, the highest of all players in the four Game 1s on Tuesday. The second-best index rating in the quarterfinals openers was 28 and belonged to Scottie Wilbekin of Darussafaka Istanbul, who was the regular season MVP. In his team's tense 57-54 home win over Buducnost VOLI Podgorica, Wilbekin netted 16 points to go with 8 rebounds, 7 assists, 1 steal and 8 fouls drawn. Third among Game 1's best performers was FC Bayern Munich's Devin Booker, who collected 16 points, 9 rebounds and had 1 steal for a PIR of 27 as his team beat visiting UNICS Kazan 83-75. Rounding out the list of best performers were Dmitry Kulagin of Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar, with a PIR of 24 in his team's 79-74 win over Herbalife Gran Canaria, and Sergey Karasev of Zenit, with 23 in a losing effort at Reggio Emilia.

Individual highs: Stefan Jovic, FC Bayern Munich, 8 assists

Quino Colom of UNICS Kazan was the top scorer in Game 1 with 22 points. Reggio Emilia's Amedeo Della Valle remains the season-long EuroCup leading scorer with 18.4 points per game. Reynolds of Reggio Emilia led all players with 11 rebounds in Game 1. Reynolds increased his season average to 7.58 for second place overall behind only Drew Gordon of Zenit, whose average is 7.6. Bayern's Stefan Jovic dished 8 assists, the most of any player in the quarterfinals opening games. Chris Kramer of Lietuvos Rytas leads all qualified players with 7.4 assists per game this season. Suad Sehovic of Buducnost had 3 steals, more than any other player on Tuesday. Howard Sant-Roos of Darussafaka leads the season charts with 2.2 steals per game. Zenit's Demonte Harper had 3 blocks. Stephane Lasme of UNICS is the runaway shot-blocking leader with 2.4 blocks on average. There were two double-doubles in Game 1: Reynolds had 19 points and 11 rebounds, and Danilo Nikolic of Buducnost collected 12 points plus 10 rebounds.