Preview: BC Mures - Steaua CSM Eximbank Bucuresti (26.09.2014 18:00)

BC Mures starts the official 2014-2015 season with a home game in the Romanian Cup first round against Steaua CSM Bucuresti. The game will be played in the Tirgu Mures City Arena starting at 18 o'clock.

Photo: Radu Rosca

This is one of the top encounters of the first round. The two teams seem equally matched at first sight with Steaua having a small advantage in the quality of its Romanian players. The other two top fixtures are U BT Cluj vs. BC Timisoara and CSM Oradea vs. CSU Sibiu.

In the Romanian Cup the rules make mandatory the use of a Romanian player through the whole game. Steaua has Mihai Paul (G), Ionut Dragusin (C), Adi Tudor (G) and Titus Nicoara (F), to mention only the big guns. In return Srecko Sekulovic can play with Lazar (C), Capusan (F), Corpodean (F) or Polyak (G).

Steaua held on to Bozo Djurasovic (F) from last season and brought five new foreign players, some with impressive resumes. Americans Bill Amis (C), Terrell Everett (G) and Travis Wattson (F) are at their first contact with Romanian basketball and so is Goran Ikonic (G) from Bosnia. Pankracije Barac comes from BCM U Pitesti after a solid season, being one of the best forwards in the league.

BC Mures kept fan-favorite Vaidotas Peciukas (F) and captain Ivan Ivanovic (F). Ousmane Barro (C) and Matija Ceskovic (G) returned after solid seasons at Pitesti and Sibiu respectively. Point guard Edi Sinadinovic (G) came from Pitesti. The biggest unknown is Sammy Emile (F), who previously played in Irak. He showed potential in the pre-season friendlies and can be an important element in the BC Mures machinery.

The game will be live on Digisport 2.

The return leg is scheduled for the 30th of September.

CS Nova Vita Tirgu Mures - CSU Alba Iulia 64-104 (13-25,11-29, 26-25, 14-25)

Nova Vita Tirgu Mures lost the return leg of their Romanian Cup first round encounter against CSU Alba Iulia. After a first leg defeat of 97-56 the home team couldn't stop the offensive appetite of Alba Iulia and lost the game with 64-104.

This way CSU Alba Iulia qualified for the second round with a total score of 201-120.

From Nova Vita we can mention Montgomery with 18 points, Thompson with 17 and Grossnickle with 13 points and 13 rebounds.

In the last minutes of the game Montgomery sustained an ankle injury and is doubtful for the first round of the Championship.

Romanian Cup Women: BC Nova Vita Tirgu Mures vs. CSU Alba Iulia (24.09.2014 13:00)

On Wednesday 24th of September is scheduled the first game of Tirgu Mures based women's basketball team, Nova Vita Tirgu Mures.

Coach Ionel Brustur, who coached the team last season also, has a team of 12 players at his disposal. Six of them are from the USA, with play-maker Alexia Adams returning after two seasons to her former team. From last year's team only local talents Bartha Borbala and Parajdi Tekla, and Meszaros Kata are still on the roster. Newcomers Jakab Agnes, Corina Balan and Andreea Popa complete the list. The club management hopes to sign one more player until the end of the transfer period.

Nova Vita played their first game on the road in the first round of the Romanian Cup against CSU Alba Iulia. With only six players eligible to play, the team lost by a big margin, 97-56, against an opponent which will fight for the title this season.

The return leg is scheduled for Wednesday, the 24th of September in the Tirgu Mures City Arena starting at 13:00.

BC Mures Centers: No. 7 Ousmane Barro

Ousmane Barro is undoubtedly one of the best defensive centers, if not the best, of the league. First time he signed for BC Mures, it was for only half a season, replacing Darko Balaban, but he helped the team to it's most prestigious season: silver medal in LNBM. 

At the end of that season he left to play in France, but eventually he ended up at BCMU Pitesti, where he had a solid season, finishing in 6th place in he regular season. Pitesti exited the playoffs in the first round after a 3-1 defeat at the hands of BC Mures.

After the departure of Sasha Mladenovic, Barro became the top priority transfer for the BC Mures management on the center post. Coach Srecko Sekulovic doesn't like to make experiments, so he works mostly with players he knows either from his former teams or from the teams he followed previously in the championship. 

Barro didn't wait long to fulfill the expectations, dominating the boards in both "Memorialul Elemer Tordai" and "Cupa Mures" friendly tournaments, scoring a double double in most of these games.

Ousmane Barro is not a spectacular offensive player, but he plays for the team, creates openings for his teammates, gets the offensive rebound, and scores himself when he is in a good position. When he is on the court, the screens are set like in the manual, and there are no easy ways to the basket for the opponents. 

With a healthy Barro under the basket, we can expect more open shots for the shooters, and less easy points scored by the opponents. Knowing his fighting spirit, we can hope for at least a repeat of his silver medal winning season in the white and blue.

Below you can find a short interview with Ousmane Barro.

1. It is your second time at BC Mures, returning from Pitesti after a solid season. How do you feel coming back?

It's a good feeling coming back because I played with some of the guys before so the transition is much easier.

2. How is the chemistry of the team with so many different nationality players on the roster?

The chemistry is great, almost everybody on the team played in Mures before or played in other team in Romania so we all know each other which makes it a good chemistry.

3. There are fewer teams than last season in the league, but most of them got stronger. How competitive do you think this season will be?

I think that's unfortunate that there are less teams than last year but on the other hand, the competition will be very good for the league because every game will be crucial.

4. How was the physical training at Sovata? Have you charged your batteries for the season?

It was great, we did what we needed to do there and it got the team closer so that was good.

5. A few words for the fans.

We thank you for your support and cheers and hopefully at the end the season we will make you (fans) very proud to be a BC MURES FANS.

BC Mures 2

During these last weeks everybody in Tirgu Mures has been preoccupied with BC Mures National League basketball team. Not many know about the existence of another team, entered in the second division, Liga 1.

The team coached by George Trif is made up 90% of local talent, all of them between 16 and 20 years of age. "Veterans" Dimitris Rasty and Lucian Tibirna joined the club this year from CN Aurel Vlaicu and CSS Focsani respectively.

BC Mureș has been drawn into a group of eight teams: Colegiul National Aurel Vlaicu (Rasty's former team), Dinamo Bucuresti (with two americans on the roster), Rapid Bucuresti, CSU Sibiu, SCM Craiova, Energia Tirgu Jiu and Stiinta Bucuresti (last season's Liga 1 winners). So, many long and difficult road trips for this young team, but also many good opportunities to learn and toughen up for the National League.

From left to right: Adrian Oprea, Bölöni Tamás, Barabás Csongor, Lucian Țibîrnă, Florin Ilicov, Botos Vilmos, Dimitris Rasty, Engi Dávid, Baki Szilárd, Moldován István, Szabó Dávid, Mădălin Potcoavă. Coach: Trif George.
Andrei Ștefan and Teodor Togănel weren't present at the team presentation.

The games will be played weekly, mostly the day after the first team's game. So the basketball loving public is in for another treat of quality basketball every week.

First game of the season will be on the 5th of October against CSU Sibiu, while the first home game is scheduled for the 12th of October against league powerhouse Dinamo Bucuresti.

Here you can download the schedule of the first round of the Liga 1 Group C games.

BC Mures Loses Presentation Game Against CSM Oradea

BC Mures presented it's roster for the upcoming 2014-2015 season. Coaches Srecko Sekulovic and Szaszgaspar Barnabas have the following players at their disposal to repeat or better last season's bronze medal winning performance:

photo by Kádár Zoltán

4 Csongor Barabási
5 Edi Sinadinovic
6 László Polyák
7 Ousmane Barro
8 Andrei Căpușan
9 Vaidotas Peciukas
10 Ivan Ivanovic
11 Sammy Lee Emile
12 Adrian Oprea
13 Vlad Corpodean
14 Cristian Jakab
25 Matija Ceskovic
33 László Lázár

After a nice presentation ceremony with balloons and a light-show the real entertainment began. BC Mures hosted last season's silver medalists, CSM Oradea. The game had two diametrically opposed halfs. The first half belonged to BC Mures, who presented a tight defense and a productive offense, thus leading at the half time by  10 points. After the break Oradea began slowly but surely to claw back into the game, and helped by a less effective defense of the hosts took control and won by 79-86.

Let's hope that this lost game will motivate the players to give it all on the court against Steaua Bucuresti in the Romanian Cup First Round next week.

Vaidotas Peciukas Game Winner

Here is BC Mures' own Vaidotas Peciukas with a game winner three pointer with 2 seconds left on the clock in a friendly game against U-BT Cluj-Napoca.

On Monday I will try to publish an interview with Ousmane Barro. Stay tuned.

"Cupa Mures" Friendly Tournament - 5th Edition

On thursday, the 11th of September begins in Tirgu Mures the 5th edition of the traditionla pre-season friendly tournament, "Cupa Mures".

The three day competition features Romanian Cup winners Energia Tirgu Jiu, last year's 3rd and 4th placed teams, BC Mures Tirgu Mures and U BT Cluj-Napoca, and BC Mures Tirgu Mures 2.

BC Mures - winners of Cupa Energia 2014

The schedule of the games is as follows:

Thursday, 11th of September
18:00 U BT Cluj-Napoca - BC Mures 2 111-58
20:00 BC Mures 1 - Energia Tirgu Jiu 89-72

Friday, 12th of September
18:00 Energia Tirgu Jiu - BC Mures 2 36-104
20:00 BC Mures Tirgu Mures - U BT Cluj-Napoca 77-76

Saturday, 13th of September
10:30 U BT Cluj Napoca - Energia Tirgu Jiu 104-59
12:30 BC Mures 1 - BC Mures 2 80-69

BC Mures has won the 5th edition of Cupa Mures.

New FIBA rules (1)

The new FIBA rules, valid from the 1st of October 2014 have been out for some time now. They have special interpretations too, with every possible situation taken into consideration. In the following articles I will try to go through the changes and see what they mean for the game of basketball.

The new rules were adopted on the 2nd of February in Barcelona, Spain by the FIBA Central Board and will be mandatory for all FIBA competitions from the 1st of October 2014, with the remark that in some competitions, like Euroleague, Eurocup, etc., they were used since 2013.
There are changes in the new rules, that don't really influence the game, changes in terminology, like shot clock instead of 24 second clock, goal released from a shot instead of goal from a shot, etc. But there are bigger changes, ones that were introduced with the goal of making the game quicker, more dynamic,  and hence more spectacular. This is why the 24 second rule was changed, the new time-out policy was introduced, the no charge semi circle area was widened, etc.

In this article I will analyze the new time-out policy of FIBA. There are two major changes:

• the introduction of the media time-out;
• the introduction of a maximum of 2 available time-outs in the last two minutes of the second half.

The first rule change won't really make a difference in Romanian basketball in the near future. Although basketball recently saw a big increase in popularity and media coverage, it is still considered a distant second behind football in the country. No popularity means no interest from the media, means no advertising, means no need for media time-outs. Let's hope that the popularity of basketball will keep increasing and we will see the media time-out introduced in LNBM also.
We can find the definition of the media time-out in section E of the rules. The rule states that every countries organizing body can decide whether to use these time-outs or not, and their length. There can be only one media time-out in each period. If a team requests a time-out in the first five minutes of the quarter that should be the media time-out. If neither team requests it until the 5th minute, the time-out shall be granted at the first possibility, but none of the two teams will lose one of their regular time-outs.

The second rule change is a more important one. In many close games, coaches tended to save all their second half time-outs for the final two minutes. Because of this, the last two minutes of those games had been played longer than the first eight. Since the fans wanted to see basketball, not time-outs, FIBA decided to limit the number of time-outs available in the last two minutes of regulation. Article 18.2.5 states that each team may be granted 3 time-outs during the second half with a maximum of 2 of these time-outs in the last 2 minutes of the second half. So if a coach doesn't use his first time out in the first 18 minutes of the second half, he will lose one of these 1 minute rest periods.
To elaborate a bit I will copy & paste an example 18/19-19 from the FIBA interpretation manual.

Example: With 2:09 on the game clock in the 4th period coach A requests his 1st time-out in the second half while the game is played. With 1:58 on the game clock the ball goes out-of-bounds and the game clock is stopped. The time-out for team A is now granted.
Interpretation: The scorer shall mark 2 horizontal lines on the scoresheet in the first box of team A as the time-out was granted at 1:58 in the 4th period. The time-out shall be entered in the second box and team A has only one more time-out left.

We will see if this rule change shall have it's desired effect, one thing is sure though, coaches will have to somewhat rethink their endgame tactics and rely more on the quick decision making of their players.

In the next part of this article I will try to analyze the changes in the Ball returned to the backcourt section, which is a very controversial rule in the eye of the fans.

You can download every rule and regulation manual from the FIBA site.

"Cupa Energia" Friendly Tournament

Thursday,  the 6th of September, starts in Tirgu Jiu this year's edition of "Cupa Enrgia", a pre-season international friendly tournament, organised by LNBM club Energia Tirgu Jiu. The tournament features former Balkan League winners Feni Industries Kavadarci, former Romanian Cup and Romanian Championship winners BCM U Pitesti, last year's Romanian Cup winners and hosts Energia Tirgu Jiu and Romanian Championship silver and bronze medalist BC Mures Tirgu Mures.

The tournament system is Final 4 like. Teams will play semifinal matches, paired by a previous draw. The winners will play for the cup, and the losers for the 3rd place.

The tournament has a very strong field, with all four teams representing similar strength if not style. The games will probably be very close encounters, with many spectacular lead changes, just what the doctor ordered for the basketball hungry fans.
On saturday BC Mures will play against Macedonian outfit Feni Industries Kavadarci, a team they have met before, while playing in the Balkan League (BIBL). The winner of this game will get a showdown for the Cup against the winner of the BCM U Pitesti vs. Energia Tirgu Jiu match.
BC Mures traveled to Tirgu Jiu with a roster of 12. Coaches Sekulovic and Szaszgaspar decided to list the following players for the two games: Ivanovic (cpt.), Peciukas, Ceskovic, Sinadinovic, Barro, Emile, Polyak, Corpodean, Capusan, Lazar, Barabasi and Oprea.

In the first game, BC Mures defeated Feni Industries Kavadarci 72-57. The man of the match was Sammy Emile with 18 points (5/6 from 3 point range). Ousmane Barro with 17 points and 10 rebounds and Ivan Ivanovic with 10 points and 12 rebounds had solid games in the paint.

In the second game BCM U Pitesti beat Energia Tirgu Jiu 77-71.

In tomorrow's final BC Mures will play against BCM U Pitesti, while Feni Industries will fight with   tournament hosts Energia Tirgu Jiu for the bronze medals.

BC Mures has won the tournament after a conclusive 53-74 victory against BCM U Pitesti. Barro and Ivanovic dominated the paint, while shooters Peciukas, Sinadinovic and Ceskovic all finished in double digits.

In the bronze medal final Energia Tirgu Jiu beat Macedonian outfit Feni Industries Kavadarci 86-68.

The tournament schedule