Asvel, still handicapped by the absences of Charles Kahudi, David Lighty or Raymar Morgan, is going through a bad patch with only one victory, against Monaco, in its last seven European meetings.
Tony Parker's club, after a good start to the competition, has since fallen into the rankings with an 11th place while the Zenith is 6th.
Conversely, the Russian club put an end to a series of three defeats in a row in C1.
Led 33-32 at halftime, Villeurbanne suffered from its ineffectiveness on outside shots.
The only three-point shot (1/12) was only successful by Dylan Osetkowski at the start of the fourth quarter to bring the score to 52-56.
However, the champions of France have always remained in the game thanks to a good two-point address (21/40 to 52.5%) and on free throws (16/19 to 84.2%) before giving in to the last quarter in which they scored only twelve points.
But Asvel, in which Elie Okobo had a fairly neutral performance (9 points) unlike the performance of Chris Jones (11 pts) or William Howard (12 pts), was also penalized at the end of the first half and a poor start to the third quarter, notably conceding a 9-0.
This sequence allowed the Zenith to go from a score against it of 31-32 to lead 40-32 that the Villeurbanais did not manage to completely fill afterwards and were finally inclined by ten points, the biggest gap. Of the game.
For its part, the Russian team was carried by Jordan Loyd (15 points), Alex Poythress (16 pts).
© 2021 AFP