San Lorenzo broke the National Basketball League matrix and sent Atenas de Córdoba, the most successful team, into relegation

The matrix was broken, but this time very real. For the first time in history, the most successful in the National League, Athens of Cordoba, will not participate in the top category of Argentine basketball. It is the only one it has always been since its creation 1985. The ‘Greek’, winner of nine league titles (the last one in 2009), stumbled in the fifth and final match of the playouts against Saint Lawrencein Boedo, from 73-62 e descended. The ‘Cyclone’, second best winner with 5, will therefore remain in the First Division.

San Lorenzo, who obtained their eleven victories of the season at home, were almost always ahead, thanks to 14-12 runs; 36-31; 54-48 and the decisive 73-62 which made the Arquitecto Roberto Pando microstadium, in the Boedo district of Buenos Aires, delirious among the more than 2,000 people who had already registered a full house on Monday.

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With their backs to history and as if their scrolls were a piece of paper, these two teams traversed the countryside. And relying on the location, they have played this decisive series up to here: San Lorenzo won comfortably (99-65 and 90-81) the first two games at the Pando. But Athens recovered with a large victory (73-59) and another much tighter one (68-65) at the Carlos Cerutti Municipal Sports Center, from which they said goodbye last Tuesday, given that next season will already be home in its new stadium. But he won’t be able to fulfill the wishes of his fans, who wanted this premiere to be with his team in the National League.

It was the corollary of a flirt that had been repeated for the past five years. It was there third time in the last five years that Athens had to play the playouts to stay in the league: in 2019 they beat Quilmes of Mar del Plata and in 2021 he batted trash bay.

Because San Lorenzo was able to end a stormy season with a smile with the push of a full Roberto Pando. Very different, in any case, from what his fans had become accustomed to since his return to the top tier of Argentine basketball in 2015. The five titles in a row between 2016 and 2021 (the 2019/20 edition was canceled for to the covid-19 pandemic), at the hands of Julio Lamas, Gonzalo García and Silvio Santander, and with elite teams, they only deepen the pain of not being that the fans feel in these hours.

Bringing leadership conflicts and with a much lower investment than in the golden years, the Cyclone has maintained almost entirely the endowment with which the championship began (only the power forward Tomás Rossi left and Lautaro Mare replaced him ), even if in February he changed coach: Emmanuele Quintans left and one of his collaborators, Leonardo Costa, remained in charge.

It was the sentence for an Athens that has gone through the 223 days since the start of its last season in the National League. He had Claudio Arrigoni, Sebastián González, Elián Villafañe and Álvaro Castiñeira as coaches, who could not avoid, finally, the result that no Cordovan wanted to wait for.