Despite the all four seasons of weather the inaugural Match-Up D StreetBall Vol. I was successfully held at the open and indoor courts of the Palouriotissas Gymnasium in downtown Nicosia over the last weekend. Stelios Filippou, Alexandros Georgiades and Hadi Elhajj of the Team eeXe clinched the title after an absolutely best final we could have wished for. Their opponents, members of the Peace Players International Cyprus, Gunnar Hagstrom, Adam Hirsch and Ercan Başaran had a slow start to the final game but they eventually came back and took the lead at 13-12 and even had a free throw to win it all at 15-15, but they could not keep their cool and eeXe came out victorious.
PPI were undefeated in Group B with a 3-0 record. They then managed to beat a strong MNG Alpha Males team in the quarterfinals 11-10, while in the semifinals they overcame Blue Cats that included two young first division players in Giorgos Frangeskou and Dimitris Ioannou 9-8. On the other side, eeXe (Enad, Enad and ex-Enad) finished second in Group A behind Blue Cats who beat them in the tournament’s opener 13-11. The Team eeXe then had easier path to the finals as they blasted by Nicosia Boys and No Name 16-4 and 14-8 respectively.
In the game for the third place No Name (Alexandros Komninos, Savvas Nicolaou and Loizos Hadjivasiliou) topped Blue Cats 7-5 in overtime. Ercan Başaran was presented with the MVP award as he was the force that brought his team back on level terms in the finals and he showed consistency throughout the tournament, his runner up was Hadi Elhajj. We would like to thank Nicos Mashias of MNG Alpha Males for helpings out in selecting the MVP Award winner.
In U16 Boys category Kareem Abdul Jabbar won the title after beating Achilleas 14-7 in the final match.
We had more than 70 players and as many spectators at the event that included participants from Cameroon, Iran, Russia, Serbia, USA, Ukraine and of course Cyprus. The plans are to have the StreetBall Vol. II towards the end of summer so stay tuned for more info.
The event photos will be published within the next day or two so make sure you visit us again and find yourself or your friends in great StreetBall shots.
For the first time after the mid-90’s we are going to have a proper Streetball event in Nicosia. The last one, according only to the memories of its participants, was held in 1994 at the grounds of the Kykkos School in Engomi, organized by Reebok and named Blacktop after one of their most successful shoes series of all times.
However, that was so long ago that not even Google remembers it and this is definitely why the youngsters in Cyprus are not introduced to the culture of Streetball and basketball itself as we all know that Streetball 3-on-3 is the foundation of the modern day basketball, and its school days.
What we want to achieve with this event is to try and revive the culture of the Streetball and make sure that in the future to come we keep it alive. Of course, we cannot do this by ourselves as we would simply be a medium for all of you who in fact understood the previous two paragraphs get some prime time on the courts and show to the world that the true game is still out there.
Match-Up D represents a group of people who are greatly interested in helping the development of youth and basketball in general in Cyprus. We strongly believe that this is one of the ways to support the foundations of the game on the island and we will do everything in our power to rebuild those foundations with solid concrete.
So… come to play on 28-29 May at the MatchupD Streetball Volume 1, kindly helped by the academies of Achilleas Kaimakliou as they provided us with the exceptional open court of Palouriotissas Gymnasium.
Also if you have any photos from the Reebok Blacktop or the tournament that was held in Limassol in 2002 please send them to us as we want to build an online museum of Cypriot basketball for the benefit of all.
Who brought the first basketball to Cyprus? Where is the future heading? Let’s be constructive all together!
