BK “Liepāja” | Photo: Kristaps Volkovskis
Basketball players “Liepāja” and “VEF Rīga” will face Estonian teams in Latvian-Estonian Basketball League (LIBL) matches today.
Firstly, at 19:00, Liepāja residents will host “University of Tartu”/”Maks & Moorits” led by Nikolaj Mazur in Liepāja Olympic Center. This match will be broadcast live by TV4 TV channel and “Sportacentrs.com” internet platform. After a positive start to the season, “Liepāja” suffered five consecutive defeats and their last victory was at the end of October, when they beat “Kalev”/”Audentes” from Tallinn with the result of 86:83.
The Tartu team, on the other hand, went on a four-game winning streak, beating not only bottom-placed “Valmiera Glass”/”Vidzemes Augstskola” (95:88), but also “Ventspili” (99:84) in their last two games. “Liepāja” are in eleventh place after four hits in 11 games, while the Tartu team are in third place with an 8-3 record.
Meanwhile, “Vefians” will face league newcomer “Keila” away, the match will be broadcast live on Estonian website “Delfi.ee”. After two defeats at the start of the season, the Riga players bounced back and have now won five in a row, beating “Tarvas” Rakvere with 104:47 in the last game. “Keila” suffered three failures in the last four matches, but the only victory in this round was a victory over “Liepāja” (94:89), which caused “VEF Rīga” their first defeat this season.
“VEF Rīga” with eight wins takes second place in the tournament standings, behind only Ukrainian team Slobozhansk “Prometey”, while “Keila”, who had three wins in nine games in nine matches, is in 13th place in the 16-team competition.
Latvia is represented in the tournament by six teams: “VEF Rīga”, “Ventspils”, “Ogre”, “University of Latvia”, “Valmiera Glass”/”Vidzemes Augstskola” and “Liepāja”. Estonia is represented by nine teams: “Parnu Sadam”, “University of Tartu”/”Maks & Moorits”, Tallinn “Kalev”/”Cramo”, Tallinn “TalTech”, Rapla “Avis Utilitas”, Rakvere “Tarvas” , Tallinn “Kalev”/”Audentes”, “Viimsi” and newcomer “Keila”. The Ukrainian team “Prometey” from Sloboyansk also participates in the tournament. The Ukrainian team participates in the LIBL competition for the first time.
The top men’s basketball clubs of Latvia and Estonia played in a joint league for the first time in the 2019 season, when 15 teams participated. In the “Final 4” tournament, the “Ventspils” basketball players became the first winners of the championship. Last year, “VEF Rīga” basketball players were crowned LIBL champions, who beat “Viimsi” in the decider match, while “Parnu Sadam” won the bronze.
