BC Kalev/Cramo out of basketball's champions league qualifiers
Two of Estonia's major basketball teams had poor showings in their matches in two different levels of European club competition this week.
BC Kalev/Cramo are out of the Champions League qualifiers after an 81:69 semifinal loss at home to Slovakia's Levice Patrioti.
TalTech/ALEXELA, meanwhile, opened their European North Basketball League (ENBL) campaign with an 84:57 loss to German side Mitteldeutscher BC.
After beating Bulgarian club Rilski Sportisti 93:84 in the quarterfinals, Kalev/Cramo ended the first half of Tuesday's game down by two points, but in the middle of the third quarter, scored only three points in a period of six minutes, falling behind 56:44.
After three-pointers by Will Carius and Akol Mawein, Levice then extended its lead to 16 points with three minutes left in the third period.
Kalev/Cramo held the opponents to just one point at the end of the quarter; in the fourth quarter, baskets by Kregor Hermet and Anrijs Miška cut the deficit to five points with seven minutes remaining. However, this was not enough.
The visitors responded with three consecutive three-pointers, extending the gap again to 14 points. Finnish point guard Severi Kaukiainen brought Kalev/Cramo back within eight, but they were not able to get any closer, and the score ended 81:69 in favor of the Slovakian side.
Kaukiainen and Hermet each scored 14 points for the Estonian club, with Hermet also grabbing seven rebounds and Kaukiainen dishing out eight assists. Summer addition Tommy Rutherford contributed 12 points and seven rebounds.
Kalev/Cramo committed 19 turnovers compared with the opponents' nine; Levice, who next face either Danish club Bakken Bears or Dutch team Den Bosch in the qualifying final, converted those turnovers into 22 points.
For Kalev/Cramo, the European season continues in the fourth-tier FIBA Europe Cup.
TalTech/ALEXELA also lose at home
Meanwhile, in the ENBL, TalTech/ALEXELA also lost on Tuesday, 84:57, at home to German team Mitteldeutscher BC.
Mitteldeutscher were crowned German Cup winners in the spring and lost in the first round of the Bundesliga playoffs to eventual champions Bayern Munich. The visitors began to quietly extend their lead at the end of the second quarter, going into halftime with a 43:35 advantage.
The third quarter belonged to the German side too, scoring 22 points to TalTech's eight in that quarter alone. At the final whistle, the scoreboard showed they finished 27 points up.
Two players for TalTech reached double-digit scores, with Taavi Jurkatamm scoring 14 and Oliver Metsalu 12 points. The game's top scorer was Marcus Foster with 20 points for MBC. TalTech shot at 33 percent, while the hosts made 48 percent of their attempts.
TalTech will travel to the Netherlands to face Groningen in the ENBL league on October 1, and will host Valmiera in their Estonian-Latvian league opener three days later.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Anders Nõmm
