Can the Dragons survive hot Topolica court?
In the last game of the Sunday’s ABA League programme, Mornar will host Olimpija Ljubljana in Topolica Sports Hall in what will be the battle for reaching the safe zone for Mornar and the battle to remain in the upper half of the standings for Olimpija. Who will reach their goal?
Jan Barbaric (Photo: Union Olimpija/Martin Metelko)
In the last game of the Sunday’s ABA League programme, Mornar will host Olimpija Ljubljana in Topolica Sports Hall in what will be the battle for reaching the safe zone for Mornar and the battle to remain in the upper half of the standings for Olimpija. Who will reach their goal?
ABA League 17th round, Sunday, 8.1.2017:
Where? Topolica Sports Hall, Bar
When? 21:00
Story of the game: An important clash for both sides is coming up in Bar as Mornar will host Olimpija Ljubljana. The home side are currently only one win above the very bottom of the standings and desperately need to win in order to move away from the relegation zone to one of the safe places in the standings. On the other side, Olimpija Ljubljana wish to return to the winning track after a defeat against Igokea at home in Stožice in the previous one.
Olimpija could be considered slight favourites this time around, as they have proven to be in good form, since the aforementioned defeat against Igokea was their only in the last five encounters in the ABA League. Apart from that, they have won during the week in the Slovenian National Championship against Hopsi Polzela.
Unlike them, Mornar have won only two of their last five games in the ABA League and were defeated by Cibona during the week in the Basketball Champions League.
The first time the two sides met this season, Olimpija were more successful. In Tivoli Hall in Ljubljana, they prevailed over Mornar with 81:72.
What could be considered to be Mornar’s advantage is the fact that their head coach Đorđije Pavićević has all players available for the clash, while at Olimpija’s side Devin Oliver and Jure Pelko are questionable to appear.
Match-up in focus: Recently Mornar have got an excellent big man in Radoje Vujošević who has been there for the whole season, but has moved onto a higher level over the past few games where he was averaging 12 points and 5 rebounds. Now he will be able to test his skills against one of the best centers of the league at the moment – the MVP of December Nikola Janković. Will he confirm his quality?
Head to head in regional league: In total 0:1; In Bar 0:0.
