ADRIATIC LEAGUE – Serbia’s Macvan, Raduljica take center stage on pivotal day

VRSAC (Adriatic League) - Dusan Ivkovic's Serbia national team players gained invaluable experience last summer when they made a stunning to run to the EuroBasket Final and qualified for the 2010 FIBA World Championship.

Those silver-medal winning youngsters continue to make strides with their teams all over Europe, and that includes 20-year-old Milan Macvan of Hemofarm Vrsac and 22-year-old Miroslav Raduljica of FMP Belgrade.

Macvan had 21 points to fire Hemofarm to a 73-60 win over Union Olimpija on the last day of the Adriatic League Regular Season, but the Ljubljana outfit still advanced to the Final Four thanks to FMP Belgrade's 73-70 upset of fifth-place Buducnost.

Raduljica had 23 points and 11 rebounds for FMP.

Buducnost would have leapfrogged Olimpija into fourth place with a triumph at FMP and despite trailing by 14 points at half-time, they had a chance to do just that.

The visitors stormed back to close the gap to just three points at the end of third quarter, but that proved to be their margin of defeat.

Olimpija and Buducnost ended up with 15-11 records and split their two meetings, but the former had a +2 points differential in the two contests and therefore finished fourth.

Cibona and Partizan Belgrade both won on Saturday to end up with 20-6 records, but the former clinched first place due to their wins over the latter in their two meetings.

On Saturday, Cibona defeated Cedevita, 93-82, and Partizan hammered Široki, 80-69.

Hemofarm finished third in the Adriatic League with a 17-9 mark.

In other games on Saturday, Bosna won 68-67 over Red Star Belgrade 67, Zadar overcame Zagreb 72-65 and Helios scraped a 73-71 win over Radnicki.

The Adriatic League Final Four will be staged in Zagreb the weekend of April 23-25.

FIBA