Euroleague Regular Season, Round 8 co-MVPs: Nando De Colo and Maik Zirbes

After a week in which three players shared the top performance index rating in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague, two of them - Nando De Colo of CSKA Moscow and Maik Zirbes of Crvena Zvezda Telekom Belgrade - walked away as co-MVPs for Regular Season Round 8 because their teams came away with huge victories, as well. On Thursday, De Colo was at his best as he led CSKA to an 88-100 road win at Brose Baskets Bamberg with 27 points and a career-high 11 assists. He was near-perfect with the ball in his hands: he made 7 of 9 two-pointers, 3 of 5 threes and – as expected for the competition's most accurate free throw shooter of all time – was perfect in 4 trips to the foul line. Moreover, he only committed 2 turnovers in accumulating a performance index rating of 33. Zirbes matched that index rating as Zvezda held off Khimki Moscow Region 96-91 on Friday. The center scored 27 points on 9-of-12 shooting and was perfect on 9 free throw attempts, too. Zirbes added 7 rebounds and 3 steals. Their index ratings were the most of any players on winning teams in Round 8. Alexey Shved also had a 33 index rating for Khimki in the loss to Zvezda. He scored 28 points on 4-of-6 three-point shooting and dished 6 assists. Panathinaikos Athens center Miroslav Raduljica collected career highs with 25 points on 8-for-9 two-point shooting to get an index rating of 31 in his team's 93-86 victory over FC Barcelona Lassa. Raduljica made 9 of 9 foul shots, too. Rounding out the list of Round 8's top performers was Dinamo Banco di Sardegna Sassari guard MarQuez Haynes, who had a career effort in a 74-76 loss against his former team, Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv. He set career highs with a performance index rating of 30 and 26 points. Haynes also tied a career high with 5 three-pointers from 7 attempts.

Individual leaders: Alexey Shved, Khimki Moscow Region, 28 points

Shved was the No. 1 scorer for Round 8 with a career-high 28 points, which boosted him to 10th place for the season with 14.8 points per game. EA7 Emporio Armani Milan's Alessandro Gentile average of 20 points per game remains the most in the league. Mateusz Ponitka of Stelmet Zielona Gora and Ante Tomic of FC Barcelona Lassa each collected 11 rebounds, which were the most in Round 8. Ponitka is now second in the competition with 8 rebounds per game behind only Laboral Kutxa Vitoria Gasteiz center Ioannis Bourousis and his league-leading 10.1 rebounds. In addition to being Round 8's co-MVP, De Colo was also its top assist man with 11. Anadolu Efes Istanbul playmaker Thomas Heurtel's 7.9 assists per game lead all players this season. Darius Adams of Laboral Kutxa Vitoria Gasteiz topped the Round 8 charts with 5 steals. David Logan of Dinamo Banco di Sardegna Sassari remains this season's steals leader with 2.14 per game, a fraction more than Brad Wanamaker of Brose Baskets Bamberg. Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv big man Trevor Mbakwe rejected 4 shots on Thursday, the most of any player all week. Olympiacos Piraeus’s injured center Patric Young remains this season’s leader with an average of 2.6 blocks per game. The list of players with double-doubles in Round 8 features De Colo, Dario Saric (16 points, 10 rebounds) of Anadolu Efes Istanbul, Bourousis (10 points, 10 rebounds) of Laboral, Jamel McLean (11 points, 10 rebounds) of EA7 Emporio Armani Milan, Nikita Kurbanov (12 points, 10 rebounds) of CSKA and Ante Tomic (11 points, 11 rebounds) of FC Barcelona Lassa.