The Balkan League will have a new champion. After today′s games in group A it′s clear that KB Sigal Prishtina will not defend the titles from the previous two seasons. KK Kozuv defeated them 73-65 at home to take its fourth win in a row and qualify for the Second Stage. The Gevgelija team is with 5 wins and 5 losses and finished fourth in the group. Kozuv has the same record with Teodo but lost by 6 points in Tivat and won by only 5 at home so the tie-breaker advantage is for the Montenegrins. Sigal Prishtina on the other side finished with only 3 wins and 7 defeats and on last place in the group. This means that the champions are out and will not defend their title.
After an even start Kozuv finished the quarter on an 11-4 run go to up by 9. Then in the second the team played better defense to increase its advantage. In the first seven minutes they outscored the opponent 17-4 and the difference went up to 22 points. At the break it came down to 19 and a 17-4 start of the second half by Sigal cut it to just 6. In the next few minutes both teams exchanged baskets and after 30 the hosts were up by just 7. A triple by Hall made it an 8-point difference with less than six minutes to go and after that the home team cruised on to take the so important victory.
Kozuv hit 8 triples from 30 attempts compared to 3 of 20 for Sigal Prishtina which proved to be a big difference maker. The visitors also missed 8 free throws from 20 attempts which also cost them a lot.
Milivoje Mijovic had another very good game for the winners finishing with 26 points and 13 rebounds. Kenyon McNeail had 13 points and 4 assists while Bojan Krstevski added 12 points. Nenad Delic and Drilon Hajrizi were the top performers for the visitors scoring 16 points apiece.