National Jordan Minchev and his Belgian team Charleroi lost to Sporting Lisbon 72:79 (18:23, 15:14, 21:27, 18:15) as guests in Portugal in the second match of the qualifiers the tournament for the FIBA Europe Cup in men's basketball, but qualified for the regular season, BTA reports.
In the group stage, the winners of the seven qualifying pairs and three "lucky losers" found a place, and a narrow defeat and a draw in the first match was enough for Charleroi to occupy exactly one of the three additional quotas. They were released from teams that qualified for the regular season in the FIBA Champions League.
Yordan Minchev was the starter and finished with 4 points, 3 rebounds and 1 assist in 13 minutes on the court.
Charleroi's basketball players were catching up in the score almost throughout the game. The hosts from Sporting led by 5 points after 10 minutes of play – 23:18, and at the break their lead was 37:33. Before the third quarter, Minchev and his teammates trailed by 54:64, the difference reached 14 points, but in the last minutes the guests reduced their deficit to 7 points.
The top scorer for Charleroi was Kobe Lee Williams with 25 points and 4 rebounds, and for the winners from Sporting Lisbon, Kenneth Funderburk had 18 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists.
The team from Charleroi has been placed in Group G of the regular season of the FIBA Europe Cup tournament, where they will have Norrköping (Sweden), Sabah (Azerbaijan) and Marousi (Greece) as rivals.
Two Bulgarian teams will also participate in the groups - Rila Athlete in Group F and Balkan in Group J, while Ivan Alipiev's Antwerp Giants will play in Group C. The competition starts on October 9.