Évreux turned Poitiers on their head at the Palais des Sports on Thursday evening, claiming an 86-80 win in Pro B. The visitors had little business winning this one — Poitiers sit fourth, Évreux eighteenth — and yet they walked away with the result. and here's the thing, it wasn't even close to a friendly fixture.
Poitiers' standing says everything about what should have happened. Twenty-four wins from thirty-eight games, fourteen losses, no draws. Évreux managed twelve wins and twenty-six defeats. The gap between them on the table reads like a formality, not a contest.
Both sides arrived with fresh legs. Poitiers had beaten Bordeaux JSA 80-79 ten days earlier, while Évreux dropped a 79-82 decision to Caen on the same date. Neither team was carrying fatigue, but one came away with momentum and the other didn't.
The scoreline tells you Poitiers had their chances. Eighty points is respectable, but eighty-six on the road is enough when your opponent refuses to fold. to be fair, Évreux didn't need to outplay them — just outlast them in the moments that mattered.
We had Poitiers winning, six-fourteen confidence, which isn't exactly a prayer. The prediction missed. by then, the game had already slipped from the hosts' control, and there was nothing in the data that suggested they'd recover.
