Galatasaray Cafe Crown took a serious step towards the ULEB Cup Final Eight with a 99-74 victory over Kalise Gran Canaria on Tuesday night at Istanbul's Ayhan Sahenk Arena. Gran Canaria will need to win by at least 26 to cancel Galatasaray's massive lead in the Last 16 return leg encounter next week in the Canary Islands. Chris Owens came off the bench to score a ULEB Cup career-high 27 points in the one-sided affair. The hosts came out on fire from downtown, sinking their first 5 shots from downtown en route to a 15-2 opening. The continued to grow and reached 25 by halftime. Gran Canaria showed signs of life late in the third quarter when Nik Caner-Medley led a 0-12 charge to get the visitors back to 67-53 – a far more manageable margin looking forward. But Galatasaray continued to dominate in the fourth quarter as the lead peaked at 29 before the home team settled for a comfortable 25-point victory. Charles Gaines added 14 points and both Owens and Gaines had 7 rebounds apiece. Cuneyt Erden also scored 14, Robert Hite finished with 12 and Dee Brown 10. Caner-Medley and Sitapha Savane led Gran Canaria with 14 points apiece, Carl English had 12 and Kornel David 11.

It was Gran Canaria who opened the scoring race, but Galatasaray was just waiting to explode. The hosts made 5 triples in 5 attempts in the first 3:26 to take a 15-2 lead. English netted 2 triples in sixth minute of the game and made the score 17-9, but Galatasaray didn't stop scoring at a great percentage. Hite made it 25-10 and Owens followed him with a layup plus a free throw to extend the gap to 18 point. Erdem Turetken tipped the ball in to push the lead to 20 points before veteran big man David ended the visitors' drought with 5 points to make it 30-15 after 10 minutes. Galatasaray was hot still as the second period began with the duo of Gaines and Owens scoring at will. An Owens triple made it 39-20, then Brown stole the ball for a layup and Gaines scored again inside to push the lead to 23. Caner-Medley's and Marcus Norris's points kept Gran Canaria in the game as the home team tried to extend the difference and finally saw the 25-points gap on the scoreboard at the halftime with Gaines's layup: 57-32.

Owens increased the lead even more the beginning of the second half with another layup. However Gran Canaria seemed better than the first half as English and Caner-Medley scored inside. Brown’s layup made it 67-41, but then the visitors used a 12-point surge in three minutes to reduce the gap to 14 points. A Caner-Medley triple capped the run and made the score 67-53. Hite broke the silence for Galatasaray and after couple of turnovers, the home team scored on a Huseyin Besok tip-in to go into the last quarter ahead 74-56. A Gaines layup helped the home team reach a 20-point difference again as Gran Canaria tried to come back with quick shots. But the home team turned the missed shots into fastbreaks and found the rhythm again, extended the difference up to 29 points on Cuneyt Erden free throws that made it 99-70 and won the game 99-74.