Loss for Levski at the start of Eurohold Balkan League

Bulgarian team Levski started with a disappointing loss their participation in Eurohold Balkan League. They conceded a three pointer in the last seconds of the game that brought the victory for visiting Mega Hypo Leasing. For the Serbians this time the end of the game was a lucky bounce after they had lost in the same fashion in the opening BIBL game in Samokov a couple of days ago. Back then Rilski sportist beat them with three pointer with the buzzer too. However, tonight’s game ended in the regular 40 minutes, when Miroslav Markovic drained a long distance shot for the 80-81 final score.

At half-time nobody could have expected that kind of a dramatic finish as during the first half and especially the first quarter Levski had the upper hand over their opponents and kept a comfortable 10 points advantage. The whole team of Levski played well, especially so did two of their leaders. One of them, American point guard Marcus Hall was unstoppable during the first half as he had 15 points for those 20 minutes. The other one, Stefan "Toro" Georgiev played great in defence against the starting center of the visitors Uros Nikolic. At the same time Georgiev was very good in offence too, as he managed 4 baskets in the first quarter, one of them a slam dunk on the fast break.

Thanks mainly to those two players Levski led by 21-13 after the first quarter and later was able to keep their advantage despite the fact the Serbians had a good offensive second quarter. The teams went to the half time break with the home side leading 42-34.

But then the third quarter was virtual nightmare for Levski and a total resurrection for the visitors. The latter started the second half of the game with a 0-7 run to bring the margin down to just one point - 42-41. Only then youngster Pavel Ivanov hit the target for three points to boost the lead for Levski up to 4 once more. But no one could stop the offensive onslaught of Mega Hypo Leasing, who managed to level the scores by mid third quarter (47-47) and then pip in front a few seconds later (47-49). Forward Miroslav Markovic and guard Igor Mijajlovic were already into double figures, while Marcus Hall was still lingering at that total of 15 points. Another great run (this time 0-10) by the visitors made it 47-53. After the 3-rd period was over, the team from Belgrade was leading 55-63.

The Bulgarian team didn`t surrender though and rallied in the 4-th to try and win the game. It only took them 3 minutes to bring the Serbians` advantage down to just a single point - 65-66. Then a trey by Igor Mijajlovic crucially brought it back up to 4 and then it even became 6 points - 67-73. Levski fought back yet again, despite most of their leading players being in foul trouble - 72-73 with just one minute to go. Young Montenegrin Dusan Cvetkovic scored and at the same time was fouled by Stefan Georgiev and that was the 5-th personal foul for Toro, so he was out for the last 2 minutes. With the Bulgarian team now lacking a typical center, frisky American guard Hall took things into his own hands and scored the next 8 points for them. First from the field he levelled it all at 76-76, and then he scored another 4 from free throws to bring his team to the verge of victory - 80-78 with less than 20 seconds to go.

It turned out his offensive effort was not enough, as his team made a defensive blunder to give Markovic an open shot for three in the dying seconds. The Serbian forward welcomed the opportunity and hit the target to snatch the victory for his team this time around - 80-81.

Both guys, who were the main reason for Mega Hypo Leasing's win - Miroslav Markovic and Igor Mijajlovic - finished with the same 19 points total. The latter had also 5 rebounds, while the former had 3.

Marcus Hall led the scorers in the game with his 26 points and he also grabbed an impressive total (for a player his size) of 10 rebounds. Another couple of home team players had double doubles too: Stefan Georgiev with 18 pts and 14 rbs and Stanislav Slaveykov - 10 pts, 10 rbs.