Lukoil Academic redeem themselves with a win in Varna

Todor Stoykov missed just one out of 22 shots

23-01-2009 20:21

After their second NBL loss off the season earlier this week (at the hands of Spartak in Pleven) Bulgarian champions Lukoil Academic gained some of their morale back with a victory in another tough game on the road. They defeated Euroins Cherno More 80-93 at the Culture and Sports Palace in Varna. It would have been too much for Lukoil to lose two back-to-back games and make it three losses in total this season, after they had gone unbeaten for two years in Bulgaria.

That third Lukoil defeat for the season didn't materialize, mainly because Euroins Cherno More are currently in something of a slump too. Thus they were not strong enough on the night and missed the opportunity to upset the weakened opponent (Lukoil coach Lubomir Minchev was left with just 8 players in his rotation due to injuries and ineligibilities).

The visitors started brightly and quickly gained an advantage of 7-8 points. It was up to 16 thanks to a great 11 point scoring run by Lukoil Academic captain Todor Stoykov (including 3 treys). The hosts were only able to bounce back a little after they were already down 9-26, making it 17-30 after 10 minutes of play. The opening minutes of the second period, just like those of the first, belonged to Lukoil - a 0-8 spell enhanced the margin up to over 20. Two of their bench players - Leemire Goldwire and Hristo Nikolov - were already running rampant and scoring three-pointers at will too, to add to the fact that Stoykov just couldn't miss. Only during the closing 5 minutes until the break the Cherno More players were able to shut down Lukoil's offense and that helped them bring the difference drastically down from 24-47 to 43-53 at half-time.

Todor Stoykov hadn't missed a shot in the fiisrt half, going 7/7 from the floor, 4/4 from 3-point range and 5/5 from the charity stripe. He continued that way into the 3rd quarter and most of the 4th, but he was attempting less shots. Also, his team had to work hard in that third frame it order to keep their advantage. And they did that for most of it, despite pressure from Cherno More, who were not able to bring their deficit consistently down below 10 points. In the closing couple of minutes of the 3rd quarter Lukoil added another 5 points to their lead and entered the 4th with the scores at 55-70. At the mid point of that another flurry of sweet long distance shooting by the visitors made it 66-87 and so it was all done and dusted. None of the teams put much effort in defence for the remaining few minutes, but the home team was able to score a bit more and it finished 80-93.

It's worth mentioning Todor Stoykov had his first and only missed shot just 2'24'' before the final buzzer. He notched up a total of 29 points and hit 5/5 2pFG, 4/5 three-pointers and 7/7 free throws, adding also 6 boards, 2 assists and 1 blocked shot. All three of Lukoil Academic's substitutes (besides youngster Kalin Hristov, who played just 23'') scored into double digits - Hristo Nikolov (14 pts, 4 three-pointers), Leemire Goldwire (13 pts, 2 three-pointers) and Vladimir Mijovic (10 pts).

Euroins Cherno More got 16 from guard Corey McIntosh, who wasn't hitting the target much from the floor, but drew lots of charges and had 10 points from the line. He dished 7 assists and grabbed 6 rebounds as well. 18 year old prodigy Aleksandar Yanev had 15 points (3 three-pointers), while Atila Santos added 12 in the loss.