Euroins Cherno More demolished CSU Cuadripol, but only in overtime

Corey McIntosh continues to thrive in the BIBL

19-11-2008 21:50

Bulgarian team Euroins Cherno More didn`t have it all its own way tonight, but eventually beat Romanian opponent CSU Cuadripol Brasov by 104-96 at home in Varna, in a Eurohold Balkan League Group A encounter. After a very competitive 40 minutes the regular time ended at 87-87, but in the extra 5 minutes the hosts were immaculate and won it easily. Thus the Bulgarian side got their second home victory in the competition (they have one loss on the road) and even managed to lead the standings of the group for about 2 and a half hours, before the Feni Industries - Swisslion Takovo match was finished. For CSU Cuadripol that was their third loss already, which left them fouth in the table after the other game tonight.

It was the Varna team, who started better in front of their home crowd, but soon the visitors took the advantage and led all the way through the first quarter. It ended at 21-24 and a bit later CSU Cuadripol`s lead went up to 6 points. But then substitute Zeljko Bojovic inspired his teammates for a quick turnaround and it happened, when another bench player - Julian Radionov - nailed a trey for 32-31. It was then all "even-stevens" until the break and Euroins Cherno More were leading by just a single point at half-time - 48-47.

Besides Bojovic with 13 points, guard Corey McIntosh had been one of the main men for them with 10 at that stage. Enes Hadjibulic lead the Romanian team in the first half with 12, while Alex Hartman and Ionut Dragusin had 10 each.

In a topsy-turvy second half both teams had some strong and some weak spells, but to their credit they concentrated on scoring, rather than commiting too much fouls. Bojovic and McIntosh were still going strong for the hosts, and Atila Santos joined the scoring party as well. Mid third quarter their team managed to build a 12 point lead (68-56). But then Cherno More had an awful span of more than 6 minutes in the latter part of the third and the beginning of the fourth period, when there was a run of 1-16 in favour of CSU Cuadripol who now led 69-70.

Yet, with 8 minutes to go, the home team recovered to pip in front again and set the pace until the end of regular time. The pace turned out to be quite even though, so it went to those extra 5 minutes.

In those Daniel Dimitrov`s team continued to lead by at least 2 or 3 points all the time, while the Romanians relied mostly on the great 2 pt FG percentage of Alex Hartman and Enes Hadjibulic to keep them in the game. But even those two had to miss the target sooner or later and they did in two consecutive possesions into the final minute. Just before those 2 misses McIntosh from downtown and Bojovic on the break made it 102-94 and it was all over.

Corey McIntosh was top scorer for the winners of this game with 30 and he is also still top scorer in the entire competition with 28.3 ppg. He also dished out 7 assists tonight and garbbed 3 rebounds. Zeljko Bojovic is also a contender for MVP of the game with 27 pts and an even better FG percentage (83.3% for 2 and 55.6% for 3). Atila Santos had a double double with 21 pts and 11 rbs. Michael Earl was back in action after being out for the last month, but wasn`t impressive at all for the 19 minutes he played.

Enes Hadjibulic scored the most points for CSU Cuadripol Brasov - 31, while Alex Hartman had 19. Ionut Dragusin added 16 pts and 14 rbs for his double double, and Sasa Mijajlovic was close to one with respectively 13 and 9.

FULL STATS OF THE EUROINS CHERNO MORE - CSU CUADRIPOL GAME

STANDINGS IN BOTH EUROHOLD BIBL GROUPS

INDIVIDUAL STATS IN THE EUROHOLD BIBL

TEAM STATS IN THE EUROHOLD BIBL

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