CroHoops

Thanks to the excellent weather conditions on Sunday all the games of 4th round were completed. All teams continued to display exciting transition style of basketball based on the solid skill set and quick recognition of the game situations. Three teams were able to score more then 100 points in a game with Bukovac and Trnje combining for 217 points in the single game!

May 28th and 29th 2011

Botinec vs Sesvete   70:89 (15:24, 22:18, 12:24, 21:23)   VIDEO

Pescenica vs Cvjetno   103:70 (30:18, 17:20, 28:18, 28:14)   VIDEO

Centar vs Maksimir   90:84 (24:23, 24:17, 15:22, 27:22)   VIDEO

Bukovac vs Trnje   115:102 (30:30, 35:29, 26:16, 24:27)   VIDEO

CURRENT STANDINGS 29-05-2011

CENTAR 3-1    334:257 (+77)
SESVETE 3-0(-1)    209:162 (+47)
MAKSIMIR 2-2    345:341 (+4)
BUKOVAC 2-1(-1)    292:299 (-7)
PESCENICA 2-1(-1)    250:270 (-20)
CVJETNO 1-3    314:358 (-44)
TRNJE 0-2(-2)    166:184 (-18)
BOTINEC 0-3(-1)    234:273 (-39)

Croatian Championship playoff will begin on Tuesday, May 17th 2011.

Best-of-three series are going to be played in 1-1-1 format.

CROATIAN CHAMPIONSHIP (M) – SEMIFINALS, GAME 1s

Zadar(2) vs Zagreb CO(3)   79:98 (Zagreb CO leads the series 0:1)

Cedevita Zagreb(1) vs Cibona Zagreb(4)   75:72 (Cedevita leads the series 1:0)

CROATIAN CHAMPIONSHIP (M) – SEMIFINALS, GAME 2s

Zagreb CO(3) vs Zadar(2)  84:78 (Zagreb CO has won the series by 2:0)

Cibona Zagreb(4) vs Cedevita Zagreb(1)    107:88 (series is even at 1:1)

CROATIAN CHAMPIONSHIP (M) – SEMIFINALS, GAME 3

Cedevita Zagreb (1) vs Cibona Zagreb (4)   92:80 (Cedevita has won the series 2-1)

CROATIAN CHAMPIONSHIP (M) FINALS – SCHEDULE

Cedevita Zagreb (1) vs Zagreb CO (3) – Game 1, May 28th   58:73

Zagreb CO (3) vs Cedevita Zagreb (1) – Game 2, June 1st 82:72

Cedevita Zagreb (1) vs Zagreb CO (3) – Game 3, June 4th 85:89 (OT)

Zagreb CO has won the final series by 3:0

Zagreb was able to explore it’s overall physical presence and relative freshness in order to convincingly win game 1 of Croatian A1 League final series by 58:73.

Cedevita had no answer to the play of long-armed Zagreb CO C Luka Zoric who was able to breakdown Cedevita’s interior defenders at will. On the other side Zagreb CO SF Ante Masic reconfirmed himself as the right defensive match for just about all Cedevita’s outside shooting options (Bazdaric, Rudez, Wright). The two combined for 34 points and 26 boards.

Many basketball VIPs already claim that without homecourt advantage and without SG Bracey Wright who has partially ruptured his calf in the game 1 of the series and has reportedly been placed on the injured list until the end of the season, Cedevita could easily become “sweep” material.

Cedevita’s head coach Aco Petrovic is very aware of that but will give his best effort to explore the situation and try to build up “nothing to lose” attitude in the locker room:

“We have to regain the homecourt advantage with the right approach in Game 2. However Zagreb has the advantage at this moment because they lead 1:0 and we have lost Wright who was our key player in the pressure situations like this one during the season.”

Game 2 of the final series is scheduled for Wednesday (20.15 CET).

Lupa Promotion today announced the acquisition of Slovakian center Anna Jurcenkova, who was recently voted as Slovakian League MVP according to Eurobasket.com. Team president Vladimir Ivankovic considers Jurcenkova “to be a successful replacement for Lupa Promotion last season’s MVP, American center Brittany Miller”.

Both sides are very pleased with the transfer. Although financial terms of the contract were not released 25-year old Jurcenkova stated that “she is definitely looking forward to the new chapter in her life – to play for the team which is situated outside of Slovakia after 8 consecutive years spent in Kosice, Slovakia.”

On the other side Lupa Promotion has the high hopes that Jurcenkova will provide a formidable frontcourt anchor, especially against the regional competition. Lupa’s head coach Zeljko Ciglar is very pleased with the addition of 6’5”/1.95m Jurcenkova: “If my evaluations are correct, we have just added a key player under the basket.”

Decisive game 3 of Cedevita vs Cibona series received huge publicity push thanks to the head coaches’ feud between Cedevita’s Aleksandar “Aco” Petrovic and Cibona’s Josip “Joke” Vrankovic.

Capacity crowd of 2200 spectators gathered in Sutinska Vrela and electricity was all over the place with both teams being aware that this is their most important game of the season so far.

Cibona’s “young guns” were again lead by G/F Bojan Bogdanovic (26 points, 6 boards, 4 assists), but this time they were simply no match for Cedevita’s experienced outside “fire power” anchored by the inside play of PF Andrija Zizic (21 points and 7 rebounds in 27 minutes).

By winning the game 92:80 Cedevita rolled to Croatian A1 League finals vs Zagreb CO which has previously eliminated Zadar by 2:0 playing without G Alex Renfroe and C Mario Kasun.

Game 1 of the “best-of-three” final series is scheduled for Saturday (18.45 CET).

In the 3rd round of 2011 edition of CroHoops League all the participants were eager to showcase their basketball skills and IQ up to the max which resulted in the non-stop vivid end-to-end action.

Although some of the players suffered minor injuries (ankle sprains, bruises, cuts…) and one of the players lost a pair of sneakers, it was the nice weather which enabled the completition of the round.

May 21st and 22nd 2011

Botinec vs Cvjetno   81:87 (17:21, 27:25, 20:22, 17:19)   VIDEO

Sesvete vs Maksimir   100:92   (33:32, 17:12, 24:24, 26:24)   VIDEO

Trnje vs Pescenica   64:69 (7:20, 15:19, 23:17, 19:13)    VIDEO

Bukovac vs Centar  75:108 (29:26, 14:28, 22:22, 10:32)   VIDEO

LEADER OF THE WOLFPACK – BOJAN BOGDANOVIC
(photo by CroHoops.com)

With nothing to lose Cibona approached game 2 of the heated semifinal series vs Cedevita with incredible energy and motivation to prove their current worth.

By closely following instructions of their coach Josip Vrankovic, who oftenly switched defenses and made the right adjustments, Cibona was able to reach an unbelievable 61:31 halftime advantage.

Second half was something different.  With PG Dontaye Draper and SF Damjan Rudez both limited with 4 personals, Cedevita’s 3rd quarter comeback attempt was led by exposive SG Hrvoje Kovacevic who scored 22 points in 20 minutes only to help Cedevita win 2nd half by 46:57.

Cibona’s young unit (Vragovic-Bogdanovic- Zubcic-Radosevic) struggled in the start of 4th quarter but was able to put an stylish end to the one of the most convincing Cibona’s Ws of the season.

Cibona’s court leader G/F Bojan Boganovic was impressive with 29 points in 33 minutes of play, with many of those coming after strong drives to the left. His strong performance was supplemented by Zubcic’s 16pts+5reb, Rozic’s 19pts+5stl+4ast and Vrbanc’s 15pts+4reb.

Decisive game 3 of the series is scheduled for Wednesday (20.15 CET).

CROATIAN LEAGUE MVP – LUKA ZORIC, ZAGREB CO
(photo by ezadar.hr)

Although Zagreb CO has recently been playing without their major season reinforcements, C Mario Kasun & G Alex Renfroe, it again managed to capitalize it’s interior presence and by winning Zadar 84:78 advance to Croatian A1 League Finals for the first time in it’s respectful history.

“Ants” were led by inside-outside punch of C Luka Zoric(22pts+7reb+5ast+3blk) & SG Kruno Simon(23pts+10reb), while the x-factor of the first game F/C Josh Heytvelt added 14 pts+9reb.

For Zadar it was SG Marko Car (26 points, 5 threes, 5 assists) & PF Brandon Brown (17pts+10reb) who made the game relatively close until the very end.

Zagreb CO is now awaiting for the winner of the heated local Cedevita vs Cibona semifinal series. Cedevita has the 1-0 lead.