Second half comeback gives Levski a hard fought victory over Akademik

BC Levski 2014 recorded a very important victory in the quest to reach the Final 4 directly as a Group C winners. The Blues visited Akademik in Plovdiv and won 89-77 thanks to a second half comeback. The hosts played great for the first 20 minutes and were up 9 at the break but in the second the visitors caught them and in the final minutes managed to show better nerves to take the win. That result puts Levski on a 3-1 record and with two games against Sigal Prishtina left which will decide the fate of the 1st place in the group. Akademik in the meantime is with a 1-4 record and the team must win against Hapoel in Israel and hope that Sigal will lose all if its three remaining games so that the Bulgarian team can advance to the ¼ finals.

The hosts scored the first 4 points of the game but then Levski responded with a 10-0 run to take the lead. Already in the middle of the first quarter Akademik was once again in front and not only that, but the team managed to build a 6-point lead after scoring 10 in a row. They not only kept it until the end of the period but increased it to 7 and in the second it went up even more. Thanks to two straight triples by Titkov the hosts took their first double-digit lead at 34-24 and controlled the advantage in the following minutes. Levski was trying to close the gap but every time Akademik responded and they were taking it back to 10 and even increased it to 11 just before the end of the first half. The last two points however were for Josh Parker who cut the difference to 9 points after 20 minutes.

Early in the third quarter the lead went to 12 points but The Blues went on an 11-0 run to close the gap to just a point. Akademik answered with a triple but Levski was on a roll and by scoring 6 more points took the lead. Until the end of the quarter the visitors even managed to build some advantage as they were up by 4 points after 30 minutes. The battle continued in the fourth quarter as the hosts took the lead again by 1. The visitors then scored the next 5 points to go back in front and kept a small advantage in the minutes after. With 2:30 to play The Blues were up by just 3 points but then they scored the next 7 points and held on for the win.

Joshua Parker had a good BIBL debut as he led the winners with 20 points and 7 assists. Ivica Radic had a double-double with 18 points and 14 rebounds while Mario Little had 16 points.

The hosts were led by Daishon Knight who finished with 19 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists while Nikolay Nikolov finished with 15 points.

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