The Slovenia Times

Ljubljana club fail to make EuroCup semis

Sport

Ljubljana - Cedevita Olimpija ended its winning streak in the EuroCup Basketball competition by losing to Frutti Extra Bursaspor of Turkey 83:85 to the disappointment of the capacity crowd in Ljubljana's Stožice Arena on Wednesday evening.

The Ljubljana club had gone undefeated for eight matches in what is a second-tier European professional basketball club competition, raising the supporters' expectations and attracting 12,500 spectators to the Stožice Arena, which sold out a basketball match for the first time since February 2011.

It was perhaps the atmosphere and the high expectations that got the better of Cedevita Olimpija. They had a 14-point deficit at half-time but had a chance to win in the final two minutes as Yogi Ferrell scored two three-pointers and three free throws as well as doing a lay up.

Jacob Pullen proved the tragic hero of the game, forcing a personal foul on attack to shot a three-point throw a tenth of a second after the sound of the buzzer. The referees disallowed the shot after seeing the video recording.

Cedevita Olimpija, a club formed with the merger of Zagreb's Cedevita and Ljubljana's Olimpija in June 2019, scored only six of the 26 attempts at three points, lost out on rebounds (37:38), and failed to stop the key seven Turkish players, five of whom scored double digit points. Derek Needham scored 20 and John Holland 16 points. They accounted for eight of Bursaspor's 14 three-pointers between them.

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