Tajfun Sentjur breaks Slovenian duopoly for league title

There has been a wind of change in Slovenian Basketball as the Telemach League has a new champion, Tajfun Sentjur. The club downed Rogaska Crystal 67-65 to win the championship series 3-1 and break a two club monopoly that had dominated the league for the last seven years. Those two clubs are of course Krka Novo Mesto and Union Olimpija Ljubljana, both eliminated during the play-offs.

Those two giants have held such a claim over the Telemach League that they have shared all but one of the 23 titles since the league started before this season, with Krka winning the last five. However, Tajfun is now the fourth club that can claim to have been champion of Slovenian Basketball (the third being Helios) and already next season has an extra flavour if interest.

Rogaska was looking to extend the series and opened the game with the better hoops to take a 17-20 lead at the first split. A tight second act saw the teams trade buckets and go toe to toe for 15 points apiece, making it 32-35 at the midway buzzer. The hosts finally got back into the game (aided by Raogaska’s 22 turnovers during the game) during the third quarter, winning the ten minutes stint 20-13 to take the lead through three quarters (52-48). Rogaska rallied in the fourth quarter to produce a tense final period, Tajfun managed to see it through to celebrate an unprecedented title.

Ivan Drzic topped the winners with 16 points and 7 rebounds, while Dragisa Drobnjak added 12 points for Tajfun Sentjur.

Sandi Cebular paced Rogaska with 13 points, followed by Tadej Ferme and Ziga Dimec with 12 points each. Mladen Primorac scored 11 points in the losing effort, while Drazen Bubnic managed 10 points.