The group stage of the Dudu Dadiani Memorial is over. Cactus and Olimpi joined Rustavi and Kutaisi after the last round. Accordingly, Kutaisi-Cactus (15:00) and Rustavi-Olimpi (18:00) will compete in the semifinals, which will be held on Sunday, October 11 at the Olympic Palace. The winners of these pairs will meet each other in the title match, on October 12, at 18:00.
Mgzavrebi – TSU (Group A)
Statistics: 74:89
In the first match of the last round, TSU faced Mgzavrebi. Both teams had lost the first round matches, although neither had lost a chance to leave the group. Both of them needed to win by as large a difference as possible, although TSU was in a better position. The student team trained by Lekso Lapanashvili lost the first match by 11 points and needed relatively less effort to correct the ball ratio than Mgzavrebi, who lost 31 points to Rustavi in the first round.
Accordingly, the goal of both teams was to score as many points as possible. TSU managed to win by 15 points, thus canceling the 11 points lost the previous day and advancing by 4. According to the regulations, the best second-place holder was passing to playoffs and TSU remained in the hope that no one would cover the plus 4 recorded by him in the remaining matches.
We will tell you below how the events unfolded. Here we should say that Mikheil Chochua led the winners with 17 points. Brandon Slay collected 16 points. Saba Lobjanidze scored 15. Archil Puluzashvili had 14 points. Soso Gognadze was the most effective with 21 points and 11 rebounds in Mgzavrebi. Troy Steward scored 14 points, Davit Baramidze had 11.
Vera – Cactus (Group B)
Statistics: 62:74
The main intrigue in this pair was that if Cactus won, he would go undefeated in the first place in the group, And Vera needed to win by at least 18 points to overtake TSU in ball ratio and keep their chances of reaching the semi-finals.
Vera played without legionnaires again. Foreigners have not joined the team trained by Irakli Khoshtaria yet, while Cactus’s legionnaire Samajae Haynes-Jones turned out to be very effective. A young man who graduated from Wichita State University and played quite not badly in its team, scored 28 points against Vera today, after collecting 27 points the day before. He also had 9 rebounds and 4 assists and in fact, he personally defeated Vera. Cactus won by 14 points and went to the first place.
The second-placed Titebi had lost the chance to leave the group the day before.
Tskhum-Apkhazeti – Olimpi
Statistics: 74:83
This was a match, the winner of which went to the semifinals with the status of the best second-place holder, but with one condition: Tskhum-Apkhazeti needed a victory with 6 points, and Olimpi – with 7 points. These numbers were needed to cover the results of the above-mentioned TSU, because they, as we mentioned above, had one win-loss and a +4 ball ratio.
The meeting turned out to be equal, which worked for TSU, however, the favorable report of the university team was not finally fixed. 4 minutes before the end of the match, Olimpi was defeating Tskhum-Apkhazeti by 12 points and thought the fate of the match was already decided, but… As a result of the three-pointers of Vasil Beruashvili and Nodar Gogodze, as well as their teammates, Tskhumi reduced the difference at the last minute to 3 points – 71:74.
The answer of the Olympians was a three-pointer by Levan Gogichaishvili and a two-pointer by Luka Kalatozishvili and the team trained by Dimitri Jakobov again reached the desired difference – 79:71. 30 seconds before the final siren, Gogodze scored another three-pointer and Olimpi’s lead was reduced to 5 points. This difference worked for TSU, but Olimpi still scored its own. In the remaining seconds, Oto Pkhakadze turned Zuka Machaladze’s foul into 2 points, advanced his team by 7 points and everything became clear after that: Olimpi won by 9 points eventually and got a ticket to the semi-finals as the best secon-place holders.
Pkhakaze led the winners with 26 points. Young players – Levan Qvartskhava and Levan Gogichaishvili scored 16-16 points each. It should be mentioned, that Olimpi was playing in the lack of a leading player – Kakha Jintcharadze and 3 American legionnaires, who although have arrived, are not properly adapted to the team.
According to the regulations, the teams in the semifinals were paired according to the following principle: The 3 winners of the groups were placed in I, II and III places according to the recorded results. All three first place winners won 2-2 matches, but in terms of ball ratio the first was Rustavi (+42), the second – Cactus (+36), and the third – Kutaisi (+3). Rustavi will meet Olimpi and Cactus will play against Kutaisi.
