UCAM Murcia lost this Wednesday 82-70 on the court of SIG Strasbourg and has said goodbye to first place in group A of the FIBA Champions League, so it will have to seek its qualification for the next phase of the continental competition in a best-of-three play-off tie the following January. In a clash in which the leadership and the classification between Spanish and French were at stake, the Murcian team transferred to Europe the bad feelings that it is showing in the Endesa League, in which it has a streak of three consecutive defeats open, and collapsed in a game that was even, although always dominated by the Gauls during the first three quarters. With Nemaja Radovic already recovered from the flu and sustained losses due to injuries to Jordan Davis and Ryan Luther, UCAM CB presented itself with a 3-1 record in this tournament, the same as that of SIG, which it won by 80 -78 in the first round. Sito Alonso, university coach, opted to play from the beginning with two point guards -Travis Trice and Tomás Bellas-, but the start was not as expected: 10-4 in favor of Luca Banchi’s men with eight points including two triples from Marcus Keene . The red box reacted and managed to reach the end of the quarter with a fairly close score despite having missed the seven three-pointers they attempted in it (18-15). The start of the second period was better for the French, who extended their lead to 26-19, which led Sito Alonso to call a timeout. That made UCAM CB wake up, which, with a 0-7 run finally finished off with a triple -Trice hit the eleventh-, made it 28-26. The game was going in jerks and the next one was given by Strasbourg to reach the intermission with five points of rent (37-32) and that after Bellas lessened damage with a three-pointer at the buzzer. Two 3-straight baskets made by Keene and DeAndre Lansdowne gave the SIG their biggest lead (45-35), an important cushion in a low-scoring clash Another timeout for Sito and a moment of inspiration from Thad McFadden, scoring from outside and assisting, placed UCAM CB to just one point with a 4-13 (49-48) run. However, the emergence of Paul Lacombe in the game, with seven points when he had not scored until then, prevented the Spanish team from taking command and in the final ten minutes they entered with the score of 58-54. It was necessary to throw the rest in the last quarter, but the staging in it was deficient on the part of the university team, lazy when it came to closing their rebound, which granted second options and easy baskets to their rival. An 8-0 run in just a minute and a half left a new maximum difference (66-54) and then between Lansdowne and Keene they practically sealed it with 73-57 in the middle of this quarter. Those from the Segura capital, especially Trice, did not resign themselves to their fate but the difference was too great to think about fighting for the victory, which stayed at home (82-70). On the last day, the granas will play on Wednesday, December 21, at the court of Turkish Tofas Bursa, whom they beat at home 75-72, and they will do so knowing that first place in the group is not within their reach.