First victory of the New Year

Today in Belgrade the Moscow Army team played its first game of the New Year. In the friendly game, Dusan Ivkovic’s players beat the team that beat them in the latest Euroleague game - the Yugoslavian club Partizan: 86-80.

Partizan (Yugoslavia) - CSKA: 80-86

In spite of the fact that the game was announced as a closed one, fans showed up in the stands anyway. Upon agreement between the head coaches of CSKA and Partizan, respectively, friends and family of the players of both teams were allowed to cheer them on. The Moscow group of fans, actively cheering for the team in the games with Zeleznik, were overmatchted this time around by the cheering of their opponents.

No less active was the starting five for CSKA, taking a 10-point lead by the middle of the first quarter, 7-17. With two minutes left to go in the period, the home team still couldn’t gain any ground on the Army players (11-21). The home team staged a comeback, and with the score 21-23, Dusan Ivkovic was forced to take a time-out. The time-out and the break between quarters helped CSKA gain their composure, and in the second period they again increased their lead, demonstrating a confident defense. However, Partizan wasn’t about to give up, and in the fourth quarter the battle started to heat up. In the end, though, Dusko Vujosevic’s players weren’t able to do it, and the more experienced CSKA held on until the final buzzer for an 86-80 victory.

It should be noted that the game, regardless of its status as a “friendly”, turned out to be very rough. Especially the home team’s leading scoreer, Milos Vujanic, who after one of the collisions at the end of the game wasn’t able to return to action. Darius Songaila fouled out of the game for CSKA.

At the end of regulation, when the fans began to leave the playing hall, it turned out that the coaches decided to conduct a peculiar “fifth quarter.” In the extra 10 minutes on the floor players who didn’t see any action in the game took the floor. In this match up, the back-ups won as well, topping the Yugoslavian bench 25-18.

Tomorrow during the day, CSKA, having played its New Year practice games in Belgrade, will return to Moscow to continue preparing for the upcoming Euroleague away game against the Greek club Olympiakos.