Turk Telekom, Sassari win Pre-season Titles
A few friendly, pre-season tournaments have taken place to help teams prepare and tune-up for the upcoming 2014-15 season. Two of these tournaments that were recently concluded was the Citta di Sassari Pre-season Tournament and the Mirza Delibasic Tournament held in Sarajevo. The Mirza Delibasic Tournament is held in honor of Bosnian professional basketball player Mirza Delibasic (1954-2001). During his career Delibasic did a lot for both Bosnian and global basketball. The sharpshooter was named one of FIBA’s 50 Greatest Players in 1991 and inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2007. Turk Telekom Ankara (Turkey-TBL) defeated KK Cibona VIP Zagreb (Croatia-A1) 94-75, to claim the Mirza Delibasic Tournament title.
The Turkish club got off to a hot start and established a 10-point lead by the end of the first quarter. With their offense on point, Turk Telekom managed to grab some more easy baskets in the second period, which widened their lead to a 53-37 edge by halftime. Cibona managed to slow them down a bit in the third quarter and even brought the lead back down to 11 points. However, a strong fourth-quarter rally by the squad from Turkey sealed their win. Turk Telekom’s Devoe Joseph exploded for 25 points to lead his team to victory, while teammate Milovan Rakovic added 17 points of his own. Cibona’s top scorers were Jure Lalic and Marko Jagodic Kuridza, who scored 17 and 15 points respectively.
Host club Dinamo Sassari (Italy-SerieA) took down Galatasaray Liv Hospital Istanbul (Turkey-TBL), 110-88, to claim the Citta di Sassari trophy. It was a blow-out game as Sassari’s Jerome Dyson caught fire during the game and could not be addressed by Galatasaray. He finished the night with a game-high 28 points on some impressive shooting from the outside. His team took an early lead and did not look back. They established a 56-41 advantage after the first half and widened the gap in the third frame. From there, Galatasaray could not match them point for point, nor could they outgun the home team.
Aside from Dyson, Sassari got some good performances from Jeff Brooks, who added 19 points; and from David Logan, who chipped in 15. Galatasaray’s Zoran Erceg and Nolan Smith contributed 22 points apiece.