The hellish December rhythm for Buducnost Volija basketball players has reached its peak.
On Sunday morning, 12 hours after the victory over SC Derby, the "blues" traveled to Las Palmas via Barcelona, where they arrived late last night.
In the Canary Islands, tomorrow (21 p.m.) they play with one of the favorites to win the Eurocup, Gran Canaria. Jake Laković's team was very convincingly defeated in the duel with Baskonia (96:68) in front of their fans on Sunday and they will certainly look for redemption against the "blues".
"It is a very high-quality team, which renovated the team a lot before the season. They brought high-quality domestic reinforcements from the Spanish league, but also excellent international players. By bringing in such quality players, they highlighted their candidacy to make a step forward compared to the previous year, especially in the Eurocup, and they are one of the favorites to win the competition," said Vladimir Jovanović.
The main stars of Granka are the French representative Andrew Albisi, the naturalized Pole AJ Slaughter, the Brazilian Vitor Benite and the wing center John Shurna, and under the basket are the strength of Kalifa Diop and Aleksander Balcerovski.
"They have two quality players in each position and with the substitutions they maintain a high level of play throughout the match. If we want a good match against Gran Canaria, we have to stop the back line, which is extremely high quality in the pick'n'roll game and is a potent shooter. First of all, I'm thinking of Sloter, a very experienced international player, but I wouldn't want to diminish the quality of Benitez and Basas either. Normally, with the organizational skills of Albisio. In the low-post game, Inglis and Salvo stand out from position three. We must not allow easy points, the transition that is their trademark. A very demanding match from the tactical side and will require focus from the first minute to the last," said Jovanović.
Marko Jagodić-Kuriža is aware of how difficult the task will be in the archipelago that geographically belongs to Africa and politically to Europe.
"Gran Canaria is a strong team. She can certainly hope to go all the way in the Eurocup, in terms of composition she is perhaps the best in our group. We are going to give our best, to try to surprise them and win," said the experienced Serbian representative.
On Saturday, in a game full of swings, the "Blues" defeated the city rival SC Derby. Kenan Kamenjaš and Edin Atić are still missing from the team, and Aaron White has left.
"An important victory, certainly difficult for us. We have a short rotation, we are waiting for Kameni and Ed to return. We also had problems with training, we didn't have enough players for five-on-five, but the most important thing is that we won," said Jagodić-Kuriža.
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