ATHENS (Greek Cup) - Olympiacos were a third time lucky over the weekend as they beat rivals Panathinaikos to win the Greek Cup.

Having lost in the Final to Pana the previous two seasons, Panagiotis Yannakis’ team prevailed 68-64.

It marked the first Greek Cup triumph for the Reds since the 2001-02 campaign, and the eighth in their history.

Milos Teodosic, who blossomed into a star at last summer’s EuroBasket in Poland while leading Serbia to the silver medal, scored a game-high 22 points for the Reds and was voted MVP of the game.

The point guard will be one of the main attractions when Preliminary Round play gets underway in Kayseri at the 2010 FIBA World Championship later this year when the Serbs take on Argentina, Australia, Jordan, Germany and Angola.

The past several months have be drastically different for Teodosic, who didn't play as much during his first season with Olympiacos and was nowhere near as influential as he has been so far this year.

"Olympiacos tried last year to help Milos to acquire critical thinking and become a player that could make the most of his abilities while capitalizing on the weaknesses of opponents," Olympiacos coach Yannakis said.

"He is still very young and has much to learn."

Yannakis added that it's the young players like Teodosic that will determine whether or not Olympiacos will continue to find success.

Having beaten their biggest rivals in the Greek Cup Final, the Reds will now take aim at glory in the Euroleague and Greek top flight.

The one unfortunate aspect to Saturday’s big game is that most of the clubs’ fans weren’t able to watch it in person because of concerns about crowd violence.

Police decided each team would get 750 tickets and the Greek Basketball Federation got around 600 invitations.

The game was shown on television.

FIBA