Basketball – Friborg Olympic already says goodbye to Europe

Three years after its only appearance in the competition, Friborg Olympic will not find the group stage of the Champions League, the third European level behind the inaccessible EuroLeague and EuroCup. In the bubble of Peristered, near Athens, the reigning Swiss Basketball League champion failed to make it to the final qualifying round, defeated by the foreign armada of Cluj (77-64).

However, it is the men of Petar Aleksic who returned to the locker room at half-time with a short lead (41-38). But it was already almost a small miracle, as the Romanian team had been impressive in its ability to put Friborg outside players under pressure, and especially since the Saint-Léonard coach was unable to use his cheek masterr Kwamain Mitchell (3 faults at the break) at will.

Without its new American leader, custodian of the Friborg game in the semi-final against Split on Wednesday, Olympic struggled to make its way to the basket during the third quarter, evidenced by these six minutes without scoring a single point (from 43-41 to 43-50). Cluj, in the wake of his foreign players (Stewart, Guzman and Richard), then found his cruising speed and inflicted a solid 20-7 to his opponent over the period.

Valorous, Friborg hung on, to return to 67-61 less than three minutes from the end of the game. But, launched in counterattack, Natan Jurkovitz lost the ball – his fifth – of the last chance. There are two weeks in Friborg, who will not compete in Europe this season, to sort out your game before the Supercup. We think in particular of the new winger Quincy Diggs, who had a lot of waste on Friday.

Posted today at 21:23

Found an error? Report now.