The relegation series between the Yellows from Split and Spars Sarajevo remains undecided. After the surprise loss at home on Wednesday, KK Split kept its chances alive to play in the first division of the ABA League again next season.
Many news agencies did not hold back with negative reports when KK Split, with one of the biggest purses, if not with the biggest budget in the Croatian league, failed to decide the first game at Gripe in its favor. Having club legend Toni Kukoč witness the loss in one of his rare visits to his former home gym was called a disgrace or even a slap in the face.
Today coach Mile Karakaš was able to motivate his team to strike back and leave no doubt that this mini-series is not over yet and has shown clearly why it was the favored team, to begin with.
Spars Sarajevo was merely able to compete with the Yellows in the first quarter. At the end of ten minutes, they were up by 18:17 before Split shifted gears and pulled away to 39:35 at half time and then increased the lead to 58:51 by the end of the third quarter.
Sarajevo was not able to find any way to counter and was shown its place by Split. The guest team outscored the hosts with 26:13 in the last ten minutes to tie the mini-series at 1 victory each.
Pavle Marčinković was able to play again for Split after missing the last game due to injury, and Marin Marić was able to show his importance under the basket. Spars’ rising star Kenan Kamenjaš scored 16 points and was tied for the top scorer position with his teammate Nedim Buza and Split’s Marin Marić. The decisive factor, however, was the accuracy the Yellows showed from beyond the 3-point-line. 15 of 32 attempts found their target for an impressive 46.9% success rate.
The final game to decide who gets to play ABA League 1 next season will be played at Gripe in Split on Thursday.
Referees: Milivoje Jovčić, Radoš Arsenijević, Aleksandar Milojević
Boxscore: https://www.aba-liga.com/match/2/20/8/Overview/q1/1/home/spars-split/
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