Our Beşiktaş Cola Turka Men’s Basketball Team hosted Türk Telekom at BJK Akatlar Cola Turka Arena in its opening game of Beko Basketball League second half and lost the game with a score of 86-65. Traditional Beşiktaş jerseys were presented to our ex-players El Amin and Haluk Yıldırım in pre-game ceremony filled with emotion.

Teams started off by trading baskets until Black and Whites took control and pulled ahead 19-15 on jumpers by Shumpert and Nicevic midway through the opening quarter. But Erwin and Bekir Yarangüme hit high-percentage outside shots and kept Telekom in the game. After Barış Özcan’s three pulled the visitors within 21-20 with a minute showing on the clock, the blue and white Ankara team tightened its defense and rallied to take a 25- 23 lead at the end of the opening quarter in which they trailed until the final seconds.
Türk Telekom carried its hot shooting over into the second, and opened a 10 point gap at 38-28 less than three minutes into the quarter. And then they forced their hosts away from the basket and prevented Beşiktaş Cola Turka from taking easy shots. Thanks to a string of long range threes by Shumbert and some clutch blocks, the Black and Whites did not allow the visitors to widen the gap any further but still trailed 52-42 going into their locker room at the half-time break.
Beşiktaş Cola Turka came out strong in the second half and applied full-court pressure to erase the deficit but could not find a way to stop the critical baskets of its opponent. Despite a late rally that brought them within 6 points, the Black and Whites could not get any closer and Türk Telekom led 67-59 after three quarters of play.
The visitors continued their dominant play in the fourth and capitalized on their host’s consecutive turnovers to extend their lead to 16 points with 4 minutes remaining in the game.
The hot-shooting Ankara representatives made almost every shot they took down the stretch and pulled away from Beşiktaş Cola Turka with a comfortable 86-65 victory.