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Quarter-Finals have been played, and Semifinals on HGL Season 3 look like this:

Rank #1 VPO vs. #4 KKS (Match organized and links provided; VPO please add match link to your box score post)

Rank #2 HAD vs. #3 RAJ (Match organized and links provided)

Team names that are bolded, are home teams that are responsible for sending PU match challenge (as usual).

Please proceed in match organizing process as soon as possible (to allow time for some unexpected events, and for other team to accept challenge, and for your own tactics&lineup setup once match has been organized).

Last edited by Wagner at 12/24/2025 7:13:57 AM

Merry Christmas to all HGL managers (who are celebrating Christmas, I don't know whether or not all of us are), and thank you for (already almost) 3 first HGL Seasons!

Next Christmas, if all goes as planned, we should be playing already 7th HGL Season...

But let's see, if we can for instance get HGL meet organized before that. Personally I think that would be great idea, but I don't know what other managers (in addition to LennuK., whose post could be interpreted as showing green light to that idea at least in theory) think of that idea.
(I realize it's practically impossible to get everyone of us in one place at any given time even if everyone would consider this being a good idea worth implementing, but more realistic goal could be to get as many to participate as possible).

We have results from Season 3 Semifinals, and home teams were as strong as ever.

Svätý Jur Snakers were scoring at will, nailing 146 (!) points against strong Rajdersi team, and meanwhile breaking some Playoff records as Hadár pointed out. They were dominating (once again) on the glass, winning boards 55-31. Also FG% was almost 60, which is nearly always a recipe for a disaster for any HGL opponent of HAD. Speaking of 60, that was the number of points for A. Kubinaň (HAD), and 4 of his players had match rating of 18.0 or better. They're not easy to beat when they have such a huge day - on the other hand, to be fair, I can't imagine when they would be easy to beat.

In other Semifinal, Virtus Portici was able to restrict KK Stihija to 27,5% FG%. While KKS fought respectable 20 second chance attempts to themselves (vs. VPO´s 11), VPO´s defense was (yes, once again) very hard obstacle to overcome, underlined with 14 blocks (against KKS´s 5). Even M. Kavazić´s (KKS) 11 offensive and 9 defensive rebounds weren´t enough to make this match a close call - can't blame him for lack of attempt! VPO´s combined strong defense, and scoring almost on every second FG attempt (49,4%) finally sealed the deal and made sure VPO´s home arena Pala-Fitta still remains an insurmountable obstacle for HGL teams. The capacity is 25550 and we had 4903 spectators in semifinal - Hadár, please send 20000 of your fans to Italy in Finals so that we can get the arena filled... :D

Will this home dominance continue, or change in Finals and in Bronze match? As mentioned, once in HGL history away team has been able to surprise home team in Medal game Round.

I'd expect next Round (Finals, Bronze match) to be much more even than this Sundays' semifinal matches.

We have some experience on VPO vs. HAD matches (including meeting in Finals before), but RAJ and KKS have never met in a Medal game - that should become very interesting match as well!


Final:
Rank #1 VPO vs. #2 HAD *waiting for match link!*

Bronze match:
Rank #3 RAJ vs. # 4 KKS *waiting for match link!*



Last edited by Wagner at 12/28/2025 5:27:07 PM

I bet on defense so my vote goes to VPO ;)

VPO is huge favorite in final, but maybe a miracle will happen :)

VPO is huge favorite in final, but maybe a miracle will happen :)

I hope it will become a very even match. Both of you are playing in highest leagues of your country, Hadár´s record in Slovensko Extraliga is 10W-11L (4th in their group in "regular BB-league"), while SventraCanestri has been able to steer his team to 4 wins and 17 losses in Serie A (7th in their group) this season.

World rankings currently: VPO 587th, HAD 655th.

HAD has a major advantage in top8-player salaries, but VPO has been able to be the stronger side so far in their previous meetings. Playing on away court is an additional challenge for HAD, but maybe those 20000 fans would help - you are the manager and probably the chairman of the club as well, so maybe you can take some part of the next years' budget and order 300-400 charter buses that´ll travel to Italy on Sunday, filled with your fans... ;D

As for Bronze medal match, KK Stihija has a major advantage in top8-salaries against Rajdersi, but Rajdersi was able to win Regular Season meeting by 9 points, by winning 4th quarter by 9. While RAJ was able to collect only 6(!) assists in their statistics on 31 made field goals (KKS on the other hand scored 25 out of their 33 made field goals from assists). On the other hand RAJ took care of the ball well, with only 4 turnovers (KKS 12).

So I hope it's going to be a close match for Bronze medal as well! Rajdersi is a HGL defending Bronze medalist, and they get to try to defend that medal in their home court in Poland, Flash Arena.

Good luck to all to medal games!

Last edited by Wagner at 12/31/2025 6:16:45 AM

@all HGL managers:

It'll be soon time to create a schedule for HGL Season 4.

We discussed earlier of the possibility to change match blocks from one round to another, to lightly shuffle the HGL schedule.

In practice it would mean, that teams would face different opposition on different Rounds (compared to first three HGL Regular Seasons).

For instance, Regular Season Round 4 matches could be made to swap places with Round 8 matches, RS Round 2 matches could be made to swap places with RS Round 11 matches, or something like that - you get the idea (I hope).

Everyone playing in HGL on Season 4, please let me know of your opinion:
should we change schedule like that or should we keep it exactly as it is (the match order during Regular Season, so that you would face same opponents on a same order as usual)?

I think that can change.

a bit of change will be good

Yes, it's a good decision to change :)
(maybe we could (for S5) change every season... ?)

I agree, it's probably more exciting to change the schedule every season