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News article on: Basketball
CSKA dash Euroleague hopes again
Regal Barça’s progress in the Euroleague was practically perfect – untouchable in the first phase, consistent in the last 16 and excellent in their quarter final win over TAU. Unfortunately, they came up against bogey team CSKA in the Final Four.
They may have bowed out at the semi final stage, but the players and coaches could hold their head
high after beating Olympiakos 79-95 to take third place. Ironically champions Panathinaikos, who
beat CSKA 73-71 in the final, had lost home and away to Barca earlier in the competition.
Nearly perfect first phase
Regal Barça’s progress in the first phase of the 2008/9 Euroleague was very nearly
perfect, losing just one game out of ten – at the always tricky court of Montepaschi Siena
(71-61). The wins included impressive victories against Panathinaikos at the Palau (90-66) and in
Athens (76-87) as well as a thrashing of the Italian champions Siena in Barcelona by 87-61. The
team were statistically the best in Europe and Ersan Ilyasova was voted best player of the month in
October.
Tough Top 16 draw
The draw for the Top 16 did Regal Barça no favours as they were drawn in the same group as
Real Madrid and Maccabi Tel Aviv and Pascual’s men made a poor start by losing to Madrid
85-83 after dominating the game till the last couple of minutes.
However, they soon bounced back and were quickly playing their best basketball, winning all
the next 5 games including a 74-90 win against Maccabi in Tel Aviv, where they’d not won for
18 years to top the group and book a place in the quarter finals against TAU.
Turning point against TAU
Regal Barca hardly had a good recent record against TAU having lost the last six games
against them, including the 3-0 defeat in the 2007/08 ACB final and the first game at the Palau
seemed to confirm the balance of power between the two with TAU running out clear 75-84 winners.
That game was to prove a massive turning point though, both in Europe and in the domestic clashes
between the two as the season drew to its climax.
The determination to win of players like Navarro and Andersen, together with the great work
the back room staff put in to convince the squad of their possibilities came to fruition as they
won the second game at the Palau 85-62. Although they lost the third game in Vitoria by 69-52 they
recovered the injured Navarro for the fourth game and La Bomba proved to be a decisive factor in
their 63-84 win to take the series back for the decider in Barcelona. The team made no mistake at
the Palau and their 78-62 win took them through to the Final Four again, this time in Berlin.
Third place in Berlin
The squad arrived in Berlin full of hope and expectations after their brilliant progress to
take them into the Final Four, but Justas they had done three years earlier in Prague, they found
themselves up against CSKA. Although an inspired David Andersen gave them a flying start to the
game, Siskauskas destroyed their hopes with a third quarter exhibition that paved the way for the
Russians’ 78-82 win. The team didn’t let their heads drop though and in front of 1,500
fans who’d come to cheer them on in the German capital, they took third spot with a
convincing 79-95 win over Olympiakos.
Fixtures 11/12
