Fifth title in row for Lukoil Academic

Double double for Donta Smith (Photo:Sportni.bg)

18-05-2007 20:43

Lukoil Academic won their fifth title in row after dramatic double overtime victory over the rival CSKA 99 – 97. With the win they swept the series 3 – 0 and defend once again the championship. Lukoil Academic continued with their hegemony in domestic league and another trophy goes to Pravets.
Game went through lot of ups and downs for both teams and Lukoil Academic was lucky to get on top at the end of it. First students had a chance to win it in regulation but Cekovski missed two free throws to seal the victory. Then Dimitar Anguelov tied the game at 73 apiece before Lamont Jones to miss another opportunity at the end of regular time.
At the end of the first overtime CSKA was the team with missing opportunity to close the game. With 5 points lead and less than minute and half to go Trevor Harvey missed one dunk and another easy shot under the basket to put his team out of reach.
Lukoil Academic, overloaded with players at every position won the title as expected. They have some players at their bench that can easily be a factor in all other teams in Bulgaria. Despite that fact Lukoil Academic absolutely deserved another title.
CSKA won the title for last time back in 1992. Despite their short bench the players of coach Vlado Djurovic never gave up and missed great opportunity to win the game at the end of the first overtime. CSKA was close in every single game in the series but very short bench and lack of experience was the two main factors not to win any of them. However they can be proud of what they have done in this playoffs after the let down in Final Four of the Cup of Bulgaria. Vlado Djurovic put all pieces together in this club despite he didn’t have that many options. It will be great for their organization if they keep him for next season.
Professor Lamont Jones finished with game high 26 points and he added 5 assists and 4 rebounds to his stats sheet. And no turnovers…Donta Smith completed the double double performance with 17 points and 14 rebounds.
Three players from CSKA were fouled out after their short bench anyway. The youngster Thomas Fikoff was the only one option left from the bench for Serbian coach.
Carlos Cherry had the game high 22 points before he was fouled out later in second overtime. Greg Danielson finished with double double – 15 points and 10 rebounds.
CSKA bench outscored Lukoil Academic one 40 to 13 but it was the starters of Students to bring the victory and championship for fifth time in row. Next year they will try to match the record of 6 titles in row. Only one team have done that in the past – Academic Sofia in the period between 1968 and 1973 year.