AEK will look to turn its ULEB Cup campaign around on Tuesday when it hosts former champion Lietuvos Rytas in Athens, Greece. AEK (1-3) slipped to its second straight defeat last week at Nancy 86-69 with the play of forward Prodromos Nikolaidis (season-highs of 18 points, 7 rebounds and 2 steals) the lone bright spot. Lietuvos Rytas (3-1), the go-Group A leader, edged Gran Canaria 72-70 thanks to guard Tomas Delininkaitis, who in his first starts had 17 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists and 3 steals in 25 minutes. Another big contributor in the team's first game under new coach Zmago Sagadin was 2.16-meter center Eureljus Zukauskas, who also started for the first time and showed little effects from the injury that caused him to miss all of last season as he posted 9 points, 11 rebounds, 4 blocks and 3 assists in 25 minutes. The improved play of that duo combined with the steady contributions from playmaker Roberts Stelmahers (12.5 ppg.), big man Matt Nielsen and shooter Andrius Slezas (12 ppg.) make L. Rytas a force to be reckoned with. AEK centers Brent Scott (9.5 ppg.) and Kostas Maglos face a huge size disadvantage against Zukauskas, while power forward Jasmin Perkovic will need to keep an aye on Nielsen. Forwards Nestoras Kommatos (10 ppg.) and Christos Tapoutos will need to threaten in order to take some pressure off of Nikos Vetoulas (11.2 ppg.) and Sotirios Nikolaidi in the backcourt. With only 28.5 rebounds per game, AEK is among the worst rebounding sides in the competition, something that L. Rytas (36.7 rpg.) and Zukauskas will look to exploit. L. Rytas's last two games have been decided by a total of 3 points and the eon before that sent to overtime. If this one also goes down to the wire, the question will be, who is AEK's go-to guy and can he beat a strong team with the pressure on.
Monday, November 27, 2006

AEK Athens Head Coach
ALEXANDRIS, VANGELIS
"Lietuvos is a much better team. After all, it has a five-fold budget more than we do. It was our dream to qualify to the next stage, yet now our chances have vanished. Concerning the 2-27 collapse, what can I say? We failed to keep up with Lietuvos. They are way out of our league. Unfortunately, the fans did not support us as much as I expected. However, I am willing to fight till the end and honestly I am satisfied because I know that we work as hard as we can."
AEK Athens Forward
TAPOUTOS, CHRISTOS
"Yes, we were within one possession during the third period, but they trounced us. Honestly, I don't know what to say. It's a big question mark. I guess that the problem was that we didn't have any discipline at either end. They scored on five consecutive fastbreaks, raced to a 12-point lead and we threw in the towel."

Lietuvos Rytas Head Coach
SAGADIN, ZMAGOSLAV
"There is no doubt that we are a better team than AEK this season. It is my priority to focus on defence, rebounding and running up and down the court. We didn't let them score many three-pointers. For, we knew that had we let them shoot open triples, they would kill us. During the last minutes of the first half, we lost our concentration and Gagaloudes scored two three-pointers. It was rather unwise, so in the second half we didn't allow them to score from beyond the arc and grab the lead. We had a very good game, yet I believe that we can play even better."