Basketball-CSKA end barren spell to clinch Euroleague title

By Zoran Milosavljevic BERLIN, May 15 (Reuters) - CSKA Moscow won their seventh Euroleague title and the first since 2008 after inspired performances by guards Milos Teodosic and Nando De Colo propelled them to a dramatic 101-96 overtime win against Fenerbahce Istanbul in Sunday's final. Ending a long personal wait in Europe's premier club competition, Serbia captain Teodosic racked up 19 points, seven assists and five rebounds to claim his first title after falling short in six previous Final Four tournaments. Frenchman De Colo, the season's most valuable player and top scorer, led the Russian giants with 22 points while American forward Kyle Hines added 15. It was also the maiden title for CSKA's coach Dimitris Itoudis, who was his Fenerbahce counterpart Zeljko Obradovic's assistant in their 1999-2012 spell at Panathinaikos when the pair won five Euroleague titles together at the Greek club. CSKA seemed to be in the driving seat after engineering a 24-3 run in the second quarter to turn a 27-26 deficit into a 50-30 halftime lead, silencing around 8,000 boisterous Turkish fans among the 13,000 crowd in the Mercedes-Benz Arena. Having lost two finals and four semis since their previous success, including the 2012 championship game when they spilled a 19-point lead against Olympiakos Piraeus, the Russian giants nearly suffered another heartbreaking twist. Roared on by their reinvigorated faithful, Fenerbahce turned the match on its head when they took an 83-81 lead before Viktor Khryapa forced the additional five minutes with a buzzer-beating basket from an offensive rebound. CSKA then found another gear in overtime and pulled away as their battling rivals ran out of steam. Earlier on Sunday, Russians Lokomotiv Krasnodar beat Spanish rivals Laboral Kutxa Vitoria 85-75 in the third-place playoff. (Editing by Pritha Sarkar)