Olimpia Brasov - Rapid Bucuresti, 11 October, 2014

BASKETBALL

ROMANIA - LIGA NATIONALA (WOMEN)

OLIMPIA BRASOV v RAPID BUCURESTI

Olimpia CSU Brasov is my hometown’s women basketball team. I’m always going to see the girl’s home matches, I never missed one in the past three years. I saw the first 3 games of the season and I think we have a much better roster than in previous seasons. The best player of the team is the 27-year old point guard Britney Cimone Jones, who arrived this summer from Targoviste, a very spectacular player, maybe the best foreign player ever played here. Sonia Ursu is a very talented young girl with great shooting skills, a real team-player, who is doing a very nice job in defence too. Gabriel Irimia is a decent player, who is making a great work in defence and usually helps the team with 3-point shots and drawing fouls.  Carla Donette Bartee is a very important piece in this team, she is an experienced, massive power forward, who grabs a lot of rebounds and usually scores spectacular baskets from midrange or 3-pointers. Shuanda Ashford, who arrived this summer from Oradea, is a massive Center, who is playing well under the basket. The sixth man of the team is newcomer Center, Zorica Mitov, an interesting player, who I am sure will help a lot this season. Andra Simona Haas (SG) and Madalina Cioroiu (PG) are ambitious, but average rotation players. Gabriela Magurean did not play in this season, she is injured. The 17-year old guard Ana Ferariu is one of the best players in Romania in the 16-19 age range, very talented and skill gifted young girl, who is more and more confident by every minute she plays in National League. Ecaterina Armanu, Teodora Armanu, Iulia Brezoi are very young girls, who along Ana are performing very well in the past seasons at the Junior Team led by the assistant coach, Nenad Marinkovic. The coach of the team is Dan Calancea, a good tactician, an experienced and well known coach in Romania. In conclusion, we have a young roster with good foreign players in comparison with other teams and I am sure we can finish on 5th or 6th place and make good games in play-off. We started the season with two games in the Romanian Cup against a tough opponent, Alexandria, home win and lost away :

Olimpia Brasov – CSBT Alexandria : 71 – 69

CSBT Alexandria – Olimpia Brasov : 66 – 55

In the championship we demolished a poor team at home and lost decently on road against a very good team, a title-contender and won at home with a huge margin against a tough opponent :

Olimpia Brasov – CSM Universitea Oradea : 85 – 47

CSU Alba-Iulia – Olimpia Brasov : 75 – 65

Olimpia Brasov – CSM Satu Mare : 87 – 72

Rapid Bucuresti is an ambitious team with a decent roster, which contained mostly Romanian players, only the starter point guard of the team, Natalia Burlakova is from Moldova...  Honestly, I didn’t saw Rapid this season, I don’t know how are they playing in comparison with last season, when the key player was Florina Diaconu, who won’t play today… Important players Raluca Ungureanu and Liliana Usurelu, former Olimpia CSU Brasov players won’t play today due to injuries. However, they still have dangerous players like Roxana Bejan, Claudia Ene, Natalia Burlakova, Daniela Toma or Ana Cuatu… 

They started the season with two lost games in the Romanian Cup against a better team :  

Rapid Bucuresti – CSM Satu Mare : 61 – 84

CSM Satu Mare – Rapid Bucuresti : 80 – 68

In the championship they played 3 games(3L) at home against better teams and won on road against the weaker team of the league : 

Rapid Bucuresti – Nova Vita : 72 – 78

Rapid Bucuresti – ICIM Arad : 77 – 88

CSS Craiova – Rapid Bucuresti : 55 – 66  

Rapid Bucuresti – Phoenix Galati : 64 – 89

Last season : Olimpia Brasov – Rapid Bucuresti : 62 – 46

Olimpia Brasov is coming after a huge win against a direct play-off place contender, they played very well in offense and Satu Mare had no chances to win that game… We have a strong roster, the morale in the team is very very good !! Rapid Bucuresti is an unpredictable team, they can make big games, like against Arad, but at the same time they have weaker performances too, like against Nova Vita or Phoenix… Rapid until now played against weaker teams or teams at the same level with Olimpia and they didn’t produce surprises… Olimpa is very good at home, Rapid is not a beast on road, but they have nothing to lose, so probably they will try to score as much as they can… I expect a home win, the handicap is 18.5 and total points line 138.5… from my point of view, if our players will play fully motivated and concentrated, Olimpia can win this game with 20 points, maybe an overish game…

• Olimpia Brasov -18.5  - 1.80   | ✓