Igokea – SC Derby
ABA League Round 3
Laktasi, October 14, 17:00 CET
At home, Igokea are rightly favorites against SC Derby in the ABA League round 3 game on Saturday.
The best club from Bosnia and Herzegovina played excellently the previous weekend and beat Split 95:90 in an away game on October 6. Against three-time European champions, Igokea showed their attacking potential and sent a clear message to the rivals that they are legitimate candidates for the playoffs in regional competition.
On the other hand, the young Montenegrin team SC Derby deserved a score of 2-0 in the opening two rounds, but the impression is that they will have serious problems in this away game. First of all, Igokea seem like a much tighter and more experienced team. American playmaker Moody has fit in well with the Bosnian squad in the previous weeks. Also, Montenegrin center Zoran Nikolic is playing better and better, against Split he had even eight assists in addition to nine points and seven rebounds. The team has excellent and long-term reliable shooters like Jeremic and Atic, and Tanaskovic is also an excellent option under the rim.
SC Derby has seven wins in a row, this is a team that mostly plays attractive attacking basketball, but Igokea has the quality to slow down the visitors' game and "break" the match in the end.
Last season, in an exciting duel between these rivals in April, Igokea won 75:74. Before that, in March last year, the home team in Laktasi won 83:67. Igokea is known to be particularly dangerous when playing in front of their fans, and SC Derby does not have enough experienced players to withstand that away game pressure.
In the previous victory over Zadar, on their court in Podgorica last weekend, SC Derby had as many as six players who scored at least ten points. For Igokea, the key task will be to stop the excellent Bosnian center Kamenjas, who has brought much-needed toughness to the SC Derby game this season. The home team seems to have enough quality options to succeed in this.
Young Montenegrin players – Vuceljic, Mirkovic, Drobnjak and Bogavac – will be put to the test on this visit, and the trump card of the Igokea team is their experience and the fact that they are a physically dominant opponent. In a variant of a slower and rougher match with many fouls, the home team has an obvious advantage.
In the previous game in front of their fans, at the end of September, Igokea lost against the mighty Euroleague team Crvena Zvezda, one of the best on the continent at the moment (81:63). Now they expect a reaction and the first home triumph in official matches in the new season.
SC Derby, on the other hand, has not lost away from home since the beginning of June, and it was in Laktasi that they lost their last ABA league regular season game away from home – on April 18.