44-Year old Anzulovic, who coached Cedevita’s local rival Cibona Zagreb for the part of the last season, has also previously coached Charleroi, Ural Great, Donjetsk and Lietuvos Rytas.
For the upcoming season Cedevita will increase it’s player’s payroll for another 10-15%. Team management’s priority right now is to add a couple of proven and experienced frontcourt players.
Anzulovic’s statement: “We have potential, with intention to show our Euroleague ambition through the roster we are currently assembling. I hope that in a year time we will talk about Euroleague.”
According to Cedevita Zagreb President Mladen Veber “Atlantic Group will continue it’s ongoing support of Cedevita Zagreb”.
Cedevita Zagreb management board has decided to part ways with the head coach Aleksandar “Aco” Petrovic mainly because the ball club was not able to reach 2011/12 Euroleague edition which was it’s major objective for the past season. Petrovic’s successor remains unknown.
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).
Posted by CroHoops Staff On May - 29 - 2011Uncategorized
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).
Only a week after Cedevita achieved a historic feat by qualifying to the ULEB Eurocup Final Four some of the key individual ingridients of this latest success story for Croatian basketball have been honored.
With an 72:81 win over Estudiantes in the quarter-final leg of ULEB Eurocup Cedevita Zagreb has accomplished an historic feat since it became the first Croatian team to qualify into the continental Final Four of any official basketball competition in the last two decades.
Last Croatian team that managed to qualify into the Final Four of any official basketball competition was legendary POP 84 Split which won the European Club Championship back in April 1991.
After trailing by 14-6 in the opening minutes Cedevita managed to hold on to Estudiantes minimal lead and to finish the half trailing by only 1 point (42:41).
In the second half Cedevita completely took over control of the game by raising the level of team defense and using it’s most known offensive weapon – outside shooting. Cedevita overall shot 7-15 from the three-point land.
Cedevita’s SG Bracey Wright led all scorers with 24 points to go along 11 boards. PF Vedran Vukusic added 15 points while future Croatian NT PG Dontaye Draper added 13 points to go along 5 assists.
After the heartbreak defeat in the Croatian Cup’s semifinal from BC Zadar coach Petrovic squad demonstrated unprecedented willingness and determination to bounce back. While proving they can still play the game at the high level they have achieved the club’s biggest European success ever by advancing into the Eurocup’s Final Eight teams.
Last week it was ACB powerhouse Gran Canaria. Today it was Serbian powerhouse Hemofarm Vrsac. In a tight game with many lead changes Cedevita managed to grab the lead midway through the third quarter and to control the result until the closing seconds, although the important victory almost slipped away due to numerous missed free-throws.
Although Cedevita’s leading scorer F Damjan Rudez only managed to tie his season average against Hemofarm at 7.0 points per game, F/C Corsley Edwards was up to the task with 17 huge points and 7 rebounds. PG Dontaye Draper had relatively quiet night with 15 points and 7 assists, but again impressed with his cross-over dribble moves.
Cedevita won the rebounding battle by 43:39, had 8 assists more (18:10) and effectively shot down Hemofarm long distance options which shot only 7-24 for three. Here is Cedevita’s head coach Aco Petrovic postgame statement:
“We could not win this game by playing like we played during this whole season, as was demonstrated during the first half, when we had big problems. Edwards turned the thumb of his right hand on the second offensive possession and he got two finger jams. We were too nervous during first half and wanted to solve everything on offense. I have to comment the night of Marino Bazdaric, who gave us a great contribution both on defense and rebounds(8).”
