VENICE (EuroCup Women) - Being able to draft in a EuroBasket Women 2015 champion like Jelena Milovanovic mid-season was always going to fuel the EuroCup Women dreams of Besiktas JK and so it has proven after the Istanbul side made it into the Quarter-Finals.

It wasn't straight-forward and for everyone involved with Besiktas, their Round of 8 tie against Reyer Venezia proved to be something of a white-knuckle ride.

Holding an eight-point advantage from the first leg, they almost succumbed in Italy as Karima Christmas scored a basket down the stretch to give Reyer Venezia an eight point lead at the end of regulation, which forced overtime.

Milovanovic certainly twisted the knife and showed her class with 20 points and 11 rebounds, while alongside her in the paint was a similarly effective contribution from Croatia national team center, Luca Ivankovic who corralled a stunning 13 points and 19 rebounds.

Also riding into the last eight of the competition are Sparta&K M.R. Vidnoje, who made light work of shrugging off the slender three-point defict from their first leg match-up with Nantes Reze on the road - much to the delight of Russia national team head coach, Alexander Vasin.

The 2006 competition winners were propelled as usual by the twin towers of Emma Meesseman who had a near double-double of 20 points and 9 rebounds, with teenage star Maria Vadeeva came up with 17 points, 13 rebounds and 5 assists.

The safe passage of Sparta&K also whets the appetite for the last eight, with the former four-time EuroLeague Women winners ready to potentially re-engage with some familiar rivals, since four EuroLeague Women teams will drop into EuroCup Women after the end of their regular season next week to complete the Quarter-Final line-up.

That's also something for Basket Landes to look forward to after they made no mistake against domestic rivals UFAB49 by beating their opponents 63-55 - a result that followed on from a huge first leg success in Angers.

A familiar face in Latvia veteran and Olympian Gunta Basko-Melnbarde made most noise as she poured in 20 points from a wonderful shooting effort, while Rio-bound Canadian forward Miranda Ayim added 17 points.

Last but not least, it was a perfect 10 for Aluinvent Miskolc who maintained their perfect record in the competition with a resounding 77-50 win over newcomers Basketball Nymburk. Alyssia Brewer did the damage with 13 points and 11 rebounds.

The draw for the Quarter-Finals will be made on 11 February in Munich.

Go to www.fibaeurope.com/eurocupwomen for full coverage of EuroCup Women.

FIBA

FIBA