Two "Bulgarian" derbies in BIBL Round 3

Two interesting games against the Bulgarian participants in the EUROHOLD
Balkan League are scheduled for Round 3 of the competition.
 
In a game from Group A of the EUROHOLD Balkan League, from 17:30 in Samokov, the local side and first ever champion in the competition - Rilski Sportist is hosting Euroins Cherno More Varna. Rilski Sportist have only played one game so far, as their game at home against KK Metalac Valjevo last week was postponed due to health problems in the Serbian team. In the first round, Rilski Sportist lost at Gradski Park in Skopje against Rabotnicki with a score of 80:76. On the other side,
Euroins Cherno More have a 1-1 balance, as in the first round they stunned Metalac at home 85:73, but last week they crashed 85:68 against CS Gaz Metan Medias in Romania.
 
Rilski Sportist is probably going to be without their captain Aleksandar Gruev, who still recovers from a groin injury. In this case the starting playmaker should be young Macedonian Aleksandar Ugrinoski (leading the team in assists - 5.0 per game), who was quite impressive in some games until now. The key match-ups are going to be at the playmaker spot - between Ugrinoski and Eric Webb (22.5 PPG, 6.5 RPG, 6.0 APG), and also, Varna will need to find a way to stop Samokov`s big men, who are a serious threat for them. Veselovs(9.5 PPG, 4.5 RPG) and Doychinov(11.0 PPG, 5.5 RPG) will have to work hard against the American duo - Peterson(17 PPG, 9 RPG, 3 APG) and Burgess (10 PPG, 4 RPG), and also there is Georgi Davidov(10 PPG, 6RPG), who steps up as the sixth man really well. The
fans in Samokov are still waiting for Simeon Naydenov to wake up and
show why he played college basketball at Louisville, while on the other
side Simeon Tsenov owes his team a better performance in the BIBL,
along with youngster Vasil Kyosev.
 
At 18.00 in Balkanstroy Hall in Pleven, Spartak is hosting Levski Sofia, in another
quite interesting game. Both teams have a balance of 1-1, but the difference is that Levski lost on the road, while Spartak did this at home. In the last round Konstantin Papazov`s side suffered a bad 100:103 overtime loss in Pionir Hall against OKK Beograd, the team who beat Spartak 93:95 in the season opener. Last week Spartak won at home against Mornar Bar with a big result - 77:60.
 
In this game, the key match-up will be between the Americans in the two teams.
Former Levski player Rob Preston is putting up impressive numbers after 2 games - 18 points, 6 rebounds and 2 assists per game, and his American teammate - Joe Kennerly is averaging 11.5 points and 6 rebounds. It`s not clear if the team captain Hrisimir Dimitrov has recovered from his injury, which puts even more pressure on the home side. For Levski, along with Donald Cole (16.5 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 2.5 APG)
and Aaron Harper (19 PPG, 6 RPG, 5 APG), the team captain - Stefan Georgiev-Toro has played great in the first two contests, averaging 19.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists. Besides those three, Bobby Frasor showed some flashes of great potential, but still has a lot to prove here.
 
Spartak has a lot of players that can "explode" at anytime and start scoring much from long and midrange - Iliya Stankov, Veselin Georgiev, Rosen Sofroniev, Alexander Dyakovski, but exactly the inconsistency is the biggest problem for the home team. Also, the basketball fans are still waiting to see more playing time
for Nikola Traykov.
 
We have two exciting games in front of us, and may the better teams win.