Something of a shocker from Ukraine today, as BC Donetsk president Sergei Diadechko announced on the team’s official website that he would be releasing all players and staff in addition to stepping down himself as of tomorrow, January 14.
Citing health reasons and poor performance by the team in this year’s FIBA EuroChallenge competition, team co-founder Diadechko posted a statement announcing his course of action last night following the final EuroChallenge game involving Donetsk.
The final four teams in the inaugural season of the Eastern European basketball association known as the VTB United League are set, with playoffs scheduled for January 21 and 22 at the Kaunas Sports Arena.
The quartet is comprised of group winners UNICS Kazan and CSKA Moscow plus runners-up Khimki Moscow region and Zalgiris Kaunas. Though Kaunas and Moscow both posted 5-1 records in the pool play portion of the season, CSKA took the group based on point differential earned in the October opener with a 90-74 win over the Lithuanian squad.
Teams eliminated as of the final games this weekend were Kalev Tallinn, VEF Riga, Azovmash and Mariupol Donetsk.
Euroleague season 2008-2009 has been over for more than a month already, but who will qualify for next year’s edition of the major competition in European basketball remains unclear. The A/B/C Licensing system has been extensively discussed here at BallinEurope.com, and it looks as though Euroleague Basketball will soon come to a final decision.
Former Pole Vault champion and world record holder Sergey Bubka, currently president of the Ukrainian Olympic Committee, is probably very proud about one of his recent projects. Together with the support of the local bank Rodovid and basketball coach Valery Plehanov, Bubka founded a basketball team in his hometown of Donetsk three years ago. This team has now reached the Ukrainian finals just three years after its foundation.
The Eurobasket 2009 qualifiers have started really poorly for coach Recalcati’s Team Italy. After four losses in the first five games, the situation was pretty bad but without going for incredible results, Italy is back in the race for Poland.
If you’ve been reading about the signings by Ukrainian team Azovmash Mariupol these days, it looks as though the owners at Azov Sea just discovered oil under their gym: Dijon Thompson, Uche Nsonwu, Marc Salyers, Khalid El-Amin, Alexandr Capin or Simonas Serapinas have all signed contracts in recent weeks.
BallinEurope has established a list of all National Champions in the various European leagues as they are known so far. If you have results to add or know who was named Final MVPs in a European league, feel free to add this in the comments so that we can update the list.
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