“I’ve foreseen a tough match. Galatasary Odeabank team has a capacity. They have experienced Turkish players. Though they were losing with little mistakes since the beginning of the season because of misfortune. We waited for a reaction after Oktay Mahmuti, a coach who has a career and discipline. Thusly that is what happened. We grabbed the score difference in the third quarter and broke the resistance of the rival. Though Galatasaray didn’t step back. They were, maybe taking a step back and raising the score difference though they didn’t today and they were in the game. Tonight, was a night that our short players played bad. The field goal of the team is as; McCollum 1/7, Douglas 4/12 and Simon 2/7. Though our tall players played well. We gained a valuable victory via doing a good defense. It wasn’t an easy match. After 5-year long Galatasaray coaching, I was a rival against Galatasaray but it is in professional life. It is exactly the same for coach Oktay as well. In conclusion, it was a good game. I hope the audience enjoyed it.”

Our player Birkan Batuk also stated his thoughts at the press conference as: “It was a tough match today. We knew that it was going to be hard for us to play against Galatasaray Odeabank after the changing of the coach. It was the last match of the first half and it was an important match for Turkish Cup. We played a good basketball from the beginning to the end. Time-to-time we managed to raise the score difference but Galatasaray Odeabank knew how to come back. We made a good defense towards the end and won. An intense week is ahead of us. We will be playing against CSKA Moscow and Fenerbahçe Doğuş in Euroleague. I hope that we gain a good score from those matches.”