The Donar basketball players are well on their way to cashing in on their ticket to the Elite Gold. With a big win over Yoast United (63-87), the Groningers took a big step towards the Dutch-Belgian basketball mecca on Saturday evening.
After last summer’s bankruptcy, Donar took off a few jackets, but one objective remained intact despite the reduced budget. The Elite Gold of the BNXT League, the competition in which the best clubs in the Netherlands and Belgium will gather from February, had to be achieved.
For a long time it seemed doubtful whether Groningen’s basketball pride would be able to qualify for the top competition, but the victory that coach Andrej Stimac and his men achieved against Yoast United on Saturday evening in Bemmel could well be crucial, especially since closest competitor Feyenoord lost near Leiden. Donar will first play two tough matches against Zwolle and Den Bosch in the coming weeks, but in the last game of the national competition, at home against Feyenoord, the Groningers now seem to have their fate in their own hands.
Best player fired
Against Yoast United, Donar had some difficulty getting going in the first match after the holidays, but from 22-23 in the second quarter things started to run more and more smoothly on the Groningen side. Justinas Ramanauskas in particular showed his best side and was firmly in control with, among other things, eight assists. Donar was also supreme in rebounding with 50 balls that the northerners picked off the board compared to 25 from the opponent. Earlier in the day, he fired the best player on Bemmel’s side, CJ Keyser. The American, good for an average of 17.3 points per game, is said to have threatened a fellow player.
Donar didn’t care. After a 35-43 score at halftime, the Groningers rolled over the increasingly tired-looking Bemmel residents in the second half with occasionally beautiful attack patterns. There were beautiful scores, such as the far three-pointer that Jordy Kuiper threw in at 47-61. It was John Meeks who was crowned top scorer on the Donar side with 21 points, but the name of David Gabrovsek (16 points) could not be left unmentioned when it came to the players who made a major contribution to the important victory.
Third place
Donar is now even third in the national phase of the BNXT League, but has played more matches than numbers four, five and six Zwolle, Feyenoord and Basketbal Academie Limburg. The best five teams qualify for the Elite Gold.