The Mykolaiv Basketball Club won the bronze medal in the 1997-1998 season. This event seems to be rather ordinary, because back in the first tournament of independent Ukraine students of the Mykolaiv Shipbuilding Institute came in second after Budivelnyk (Construction Worker) of Kyiv. But when experienced coach of Mykolaiv team Hennady Zashchuk and young center Hryhory Hyzhniak moved to Budivelnyk, most people were ready to pronounce the Mykolaiv team dead.
But the team did not fall apart. On the contrary, it got even better.
The current head coach of the team, Valentyn Berestniev set his sights on a place in the top four and made it. His team had 19 victories and 13 defeats, 51 points, 59% of those possible.
After defeating the Army club from Kyiv in the quarterfinals, Mykolaiv faced Odesa. Knowing that the series ended three to zero in favor of Odesa, we might think Mykolaiv had no chance. However, it is not that simple. Out of 32 road games Bipa Moda of Odesa lost only three, one of which to the shipbuilders. And who knows what medals would they win, if they did not play Bipa in quarterfinals!
But there were also so-called comforting finals. The game was tense and it was not clear who was going to win the bronze until the very last minute of the final game. Shakhtar (Miner) won the second and third games and led the series two to one. Mykolaiv managed to take over in the third – 61:52. In the middle of the final fifth game, the result seemed clear – Shakhtar was 15 points ahead. But then Mykolaiv managed to use a few mistakes of the opponents and break the game, which ended 90:88 in favor of the shipbuilders.
“Such game style is usual for our team,” Valentyn Berestniev thinks. “The boys need a long warm-up, but then they catch up to their opponents. At home we can win, not always on the road. This is probably why they call us a home team. I can say that on the road we play worse than we are able, and at home we sometimes play even better.”
Volodymyr Poliakh, Oleksandr Rayevsky and Kostiantyn Furman constitute the nucleus (base) of the team, which has been pretty stable during last few years. Rayevsky and Furman have correspondingly second and fourth places (625 and 618 points) in the list of top scorers. They have been drafted for the national team.
Basketball was always a basic sport in Mykolaiv. For a long time the team played under the institute’s banner of Burevisnyk. But when they converted to professionals, the Mykolaiv Sports Club was formed and now unites the soccer and basketball teams. The Nadiya (Hope) local sports school traditionally supplies the team most of its new blood.
Everything works out if there is money. There were elections, which ate up much money, then came new city authorities, which inherited a part of the Mykolaiv Sports Club. What then? By the end of May the players had been paid in part for February. It helps that the local department of physical culture and sports covers expenses for food. And when the head coach says that the task number one is to keep players from leaving the team, we see that his fears are justified.
The solemn celebration of winning the bronze took place in the city’s largest hall, the Palace of Shipbuilders. Singers sang songs and danced; managers were forced to promise help. And not by means of hocking the club’s property. Salary arrears have been paid off, and a bonus will also soon be paid. Of course when they did not find the club in the list of Ukrainian clubs which would participate in the EuroCup tournament, the first thing that came to my mind was: we are poor again.
You have to agree that if we cannot fight for the place in EuroCup playoffs, anything else would simply not be serious. Can we trade our 1998 bronze for a 1999 silver? Oh, what a dreamer that Berestniev is!
Photo by Oleksandr Dvoinysiuk, Komanda:
Every basketball game is played under the roof of Nadiya, like an exhibition







