Fenerbahce secured a major 64-61 road win over reigning European champion Olympiacos, and Sarunas Jasikevicius is now preparing his team for a revealing week in Spain, with visits to Valencia on October 27 and Real Madrid on October 29.
Fenerbahce did not need a road win over Olympiacos to enter the conversation about this season’s title favorites. The 2025 European champion has quality, experience and a coach who has established clear demands for his players. It did, however, need a convincing response away from home. At SUNEL Arena, it delivered one through the feature that best defines its season so far: defense.
The 64-61 victory over the reigning European champion lifted Fenerbahce to 6-1 and kept it alongside Panathinaikos at the top of the standings. It also ended a sequence of defeats against Olympiacos, stretching from the 2026 Final Four semifinal to September’s preseason friendly and the Super Cup semifinal. This time, the closing stages belonged to Sarunas Jasikevicius’s team.
The result carries greater weight when viewed in the context of Fenerbahce’s previous performances. It had won all five of its home games but suffered a clear 92-74 defeat to Panathinaikos at the T-Center on its only previous EuroLeague road trip. Visiting Olympiacos was therefore a genuine test: could it take its toughness and discipline beyond Istanbul against an elite opponent?
The answer was yes, although the performance was far from flawless. This is where the roster’s wealth of options enters the discussion. Tarik Biberovic’s departure in the summer left a significant gap, but Fenerbahce added depth at the forward positions. Shavon Shields and Braxton Key already have distinct roles alongside Wade Baldwin and Talen Horton-Tucker, giving Saras different combinations and ways to distribute responsibility.
Shields leads the team in scoring with 11.6 points per game, adding 4.3 rebounds. Baldwin averages 11.3 points and 5.4 assists, while Horton-Tucker follows with 10.6 points. Key contributes 8.7 points and 5.3 rebounds, including 2.4 offensive boards. Those numbers reflect a distribution of responsibilities in which no one has to score 20 every night for the team to function.
At SUNEL Arena, Shields scored 17 points with 3-of-5 shooting from beyond the arc, while Baldwin added 14 and a crucial late basket to put the visitors ahead. Shane Larkin, however, deserves special mention: 13 points, 5 assists, no turnovers and a PIR of 16 in 21:58, shooting 2 of 3 on two-pointers and 3 of 7 from deep. His plus-13, with Fenerbahce working its way back into contention in the third quarter, rounded out a vintage performance that made a real difference in a game decided by fine margins.
Larkin’s five assists without a turnover were particularly valuable on a low-scoring night. The experienced American gave Fenerbahce precisely the quality it needed at a point when its offense had stalled.
Defense, of course, remains the foundation. The Turkish champion allows 72.6 points per game, the lowest figure in the competition. Olympiacos’s 61 points fell even below that mark, although the absences of Evan Fournier, Jean Montero and Tyler Dorsey clearly have to be taken into account. The standard of Fenerbahce’s defense, however, is not built on that night alone.
Fenerbahce’s opponents average just 15.7 assists, the second-lowest figure in the EuroLeague. They also shoot 50.6% on two-pointers and only 28.9% on threes, with Jasikevicius’s team ranking second in limiting opponent accuracy in both categories. The difficulty is not simply in finishing a possession, but in creating the right conditions to take the shot in the first place.
Ball security completes the picture: opponents average just five steals per game against Fenerbahce, the fewest in the competition. That league-leading figure concerns preventing opponents from stealing the ball, something that directly affects defensive balance. The fewer possessions it gives away in that fashion, the fewer opportunities opponents have to run in the open court.
The next answers lie in Spain. Against Valencia on Tuesday, October 27, and Real Madrid on Thursday, October 29, Fenerbahce faces two teams seeking high offensive production and a different tempo. Martínez’s side already averages 95.3 points per game and shoots 40.5% from three, making the task of containing perimeter attempts even more significant.
The road win over Olympiacos brings confidence and a boost in the standings, but the double-round week offers a more demanding measure of this ambitious Fenerbahce team. Jasikevicius’s players now have to reproduce their defensive consistency in consecutive road games, with very little time to adjust.
