Ovie Soko was in excellent form as London Lions recorded their first 7Days EuroCup victory in club history, with an 80-75 victory against Dolomiti Energia Trento, on Tuesday.
Lions trailed 27-21 at the first break, but captain Soko's 22 point, 14 rebound game, helped the home side to a famous victory in front of a raucous Copper Box crowd.
With Sam Dekker missing through injury, Ryan Schmidt's team produced a balanced offensive performance with four other players in double-digits. Three-point assassin Vojtech Hruban finished with 17 points and four assists, while Tomislav Zubcic added 13 points. Luke Nelson had four assists to go with his 12 points, with Aaron Best completing the leading scorers with 11 points.
Drew Crawford led the visitors with 17 points and four boards, but missed a key free-throw down the stretch and was then called for a lane violation as he attempted to deliberately miss at the foul line in the hope of scoring a trey off the rebound.
Dego Flaccadori finished with 17 points and five assists, while Matteo Spagnolo had 14 points and six boards.
Lions trailed for much of the game but Soko made it a one point deficit with 4:33 on the clock only to see hit a triple to put his side 72-68 ahead before Spagnolo made it a six point game.
Hruban and Zubcic chipped away at the visitors' lead to cut it to two points with three minutes remaining, and Soko tied the game at 74 heading into the final two minutes with a pair at the foul line.
Soko remained cool at the line to put his side up by two with 45 seconds remaining but a hash foul on Best saw Crawford halve the lead with 18 ticks on the clock.
Trent Lockett sent Best to the foul line to stop the clock, but the Canadian guard hit both free-throws and after Crawford had missed at the line, Best scored another pair before - fittingly - Soko stole the ball to seal the victory.
Earlier in the game Soko had scored ten points to get Lions off to a good start, only to see the visitors finish the first period strongly as Andrejs Grazulis sent them into the first break 27-21 ahead.
Soko opened the second period scoring and Lions stayed in touch without regaining the lead. before Nelson's triple helped them go into the locker room trailing only 44-41.
Best got off the mark to open the second half, and Nelson briefly tied the game, and triples from Soko, Best and Mo Salude saw the visitors' lead cut to 60-58 at the final break.
Vojtech scored his fourth basket from downtown to give Lions their first lead since the opening stages as they started the fourth period well and the Czech forward sunk his fifth trey to finish with an impressive 5-from-7 to set up the grandstand finish.