The Bulgarian men's national basketball team played a strong match and defeated Romania as a guest with 103:86 (34:32, 23:16, 20:18, 206:20) in their first match from Group D in the second stage of the preliminary qualifications for EuroBasket 2029 in Spain, Greece, Slovenia and Estonia.
The head coach Lyubomir Minchev started with the following starting five: Umodzha Gibson, Pavlin Ivanov, Yordan Minchev, Borislav Mladenov, Alexander Vezenkov. Gibson made his debut with the Bulgarian team.
Only the first quarter was equal, after which the national team took control of the game and surpassed the hosts in all indicators of the game. At the break, they had a 57:48 lead.
In the third quarter, the guests increased their lead a little and after 30 minutes they were leading 77:66. The Bulgarians started the last quarter with a 7:0 run for 84:66 and had no problems until the end to reach the final success.
An exceptionally strong game was played by the star of the Bulgarian team, Alexander Vezenkov, who distinguished himself with 36 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists. Borislav Mladenov added a "double-double" - 14 points and 11 rebounds.
For the Romanians, Darren Russell scored 22 points, and Dragos Diculescu - 17.
The next match for Lyubomir Minchev's team is at home to Denmark on November 26.
In the first match of the group a few days ago, Romania defeated Denmark as a guest with 89:78.