Basketball New Zealand

Tall Blacks coach Nenad Vucinic (Photosport)

Turns out Tall Blacks head coach Nenad Vucinic and his Estonian club, BC Kalev/Cramo, still have work to do to make the Baltic Basketball League’s Final Four, after all.

Currently third in the BBL at 11-6 after an 82-76 home win over last-placed Nevezis of Lithuania on Friday, will have to wait until the last night of the regular season to know their playoff fate.

Sitting a win behind second-placed Zalgiris of Lithuania, Kalev needs to defeat Latvia’s Ventspils at home on February 14 and have regular season champions Lietuvos Rytas beat their countrymen of Zalgiris the same night.

A top-two finish guarantees an automatic place in the BBL’s Final Four, while finishing third or fourth would see Kalev face a difficult best-of-three quarterfinal series to reach the competition’s semifinals.

“This has been the most successful year for Kalev for the last 15 years. After finishing seventh last year in the Baltic league nobody expected this result,” Vucinic said.

“We had a slow start as the team had four new players that I recruited and also we only had a week preparation due to five players coming into the camp late due to national team duties.

“We were 1-4 to start and now we are 11-6. Fans are really supporting us they have been turning up in numbers (4000) for home games plus there is about 40 of most loyal fans that travel on the bus up to 10 hours to support us on road.

“I have enjoyed the season, winning helps a lot. The level of basketball is very high and we have managed to compete very well and win games against teams that are on the paper much stronger and definitely with much higher budgets. Some teams we played in the EuroChallenge had budgets of 15 million euros (almost $NZ40 mil) and we managed to beat them.”

Kalev also face an Estonian KML triple-header this week, with games on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday.

In Switzerland, former Tall Black Brendon Polyblank scored 21 points (7/10 FG, 0/2 3pt, 7/8 FT) with a rebound and assist in 35 minutes but could not prevent Lausanne from falling 72-52 to Bennetton Fribourg Olympic in the Swiss League Cup semifinals on Saturday. Fribourg went on to beat BBC Nyon 81-74 in the title game on Sunday.

Former Tall Blacks point guard Mark Dickel provided eight points (4/6 FG, 0/1 3pt), three assists and a rebound in 22 minutes as AS Trikalla picked up their fourth win of the season, 79-70 over AEL 1964 at home in round 20 of the Greek A1 league.

Tall Blacks centre Craig Bradshaw contributed four points (2/2 FG, 0/4 FT), two boards, an assist and block in 23 minutes as his Grupo Begar Leon club ended a losing streak with a 67-57 home win over CB Villa de los Barrios in round 22 of the Spanish LEB Gold on Friday.

In Germany, Harbour Heat forward BJ Anthony scored six points (2/4 FG, 2/2 FT), with eight boards, an assist and steal in 21 minutes as Herzoge Wolfenbuttel beat UBC Hannover Tigers at home on Saturday in round 22 of the Bundesliga division two pro B.

In Romania, Wellington Saints forward Leon Henry had no points (0/2 FG, 0/1 3pt), three assists, two rebounds and a steal in eight minutes of Tab Baldwin’s U Mobitelco Cluj-Napoca’s 79-66 home win over BC Mures Targu Mures on Sunday, lifting the Red Caps to 15-6 and fourth in Divizia A.