BC Vienna – BK Redstone Olomoucko 94:92 (26:21, 19:29, 28:26, 21:16)
Referees: Margala, Uhrin, Kubik (all Slovakia)
Attendance: 100
Scorers – Vienna: Konjević 28, Vujošević 24, Bajo 18, Sirišević 15, Stazić 5, Cvetkova 3, Zdravković 1, Stuckey, Rados and Zadeh 0
Scorers – Olomoucko: Adamu 27, Fšstr 18, McBrayer 16, Škranc 11, Hemphill 8, Vogt and Žák each 6, Olbortl and Grmolenský 0
The first ball went to Olomoucko, who converted it directly into two points. Afterwards, Vienna also got the chance to put 6 points on the board in a row, which prompted the Olomoucko coach to call his first and very early time-out of the game. The guests quickly managed to make up the deficit, and the game was very even, with Vienna taking a five-point lead (26:21) at the end of the first quarter. It took less than two minutes for Olomoucko to make up for this deficit again and even take the lead at minute 8:18 on the clock. Now Vienna’s coach, Radanović, called his men to the bench for a time-out very early at the beginning of the second period. Afterwards, some nice plays were shown by Vienna, but the guests retained their luckier throwing skills with 3 successful three-pointers in a row. But apart from that, Olomoucko managed to extend the lead to double digits with quick counterattacks two minutes before the end of the quarter (39:50). In the last few minutes, the home team, Vienna, showed two nice attacks and were able to reduce the score to (45:50) by the final whistle of this quarter.
Feštr opened the second half for Olomoucko with 3 consecutive impressive three-pointers – Vienna had to stop the guests’ shooting run with a timeout. Immediately after the time-out, Adamu (Olomoucko) added two more three-pointers in a row before Vienna countered with three points themselves. Olomoucko had already extended the lead to +13 points and took another time out halfway through the quarter to discuss what to do next. Immediately afterwards, Vienna showed with 3 quick fastbreaks that they could also bring about a quick turnaround and went on a 12-0 run. By the end of these 10 minutes, Vienna was able to reduce the deficit to minus 3 with a buzzer-beater three-pointer from Vujošević (73:76). The game continued very evenly – sometimes Vienna scored, sometimes Olomoucko, and nobody was able to reduce or increase the gap. Only when Vienna lost big man Bajo in the 4th minute due to his 5th foul did Olomoucko sense their chance under the basket. However, in the attack that followed, their big man, Vogt, also fouled out of the game. The game now picked up speed, and with 3 minutes left on the clock, Olomoucko was only ahead by one point (87:88). Twelve seconds before the end, Vienna managed to equalize to 92:92. Coach Hipsher now took his last time-out. A buzzer-beater layup with a foul from Vujošević gave Vienna a 94:92 win this night.
Post-game quotes:
Darko Bajo, player of Vienna: “Just all around a great team effort, we are happy that we were able to win. We’re just going to keep playing and give everything we have.”
Davor Konjević, player of Vienna: “We knew we were in a short rotation with a lot of young guys, but we knew we had to keep the rhythm. We failed in the third quarter, but we kept the comradery between each other and got the win, that’s important.”
Roger Hemphill, player of Olomoucko: “Obviously a really tough ending, but we just have to try to find a way to move forward and keep trying to get better going forward. We have a lot of games coming up, so just try to get better.”
