Virtus and Athleta will meet in the BOV KO final on Tuesday.

Basketball enthusiasts are in for a treat over the coming days as champions and KO holders AtoZ Electronics Athleta and challengers Virtus Cynergi meet twice between tomorrow and next Tuesday.

The two title contenders, level at the top of the league standings, go head to head in a championship match tomorrow before renewing hostilities on Tuesday in the final of the BOV Knock-Out competition.

Paul Ferrante and Joe Galea, the coaches of Virtus and Athleta respectively, are optimistic that next week’s final will live up to its billing as a cup showdown between two of the leading teams in this season’s competitions.

“We have a league game preceding the cup final,” Ferrante told a news conference at the Malta Basketball Association (MBA) offices in Ta’ Qali yesterday.

“This is not the first final we are playing against Athleta. We met in the Shield and lost to Athleta in the Louis Borg Cup.

“All games between Athleta and us were played in a good sporting spirit. I’m looking forward to the game which should offer a good show of basketball.”

Virtus beat Athleta 74-70 in the final of the St James Hospital Shield but Galea’s men held the upperhand in the championship’s first-round match and in the semi-finals of the Anniversary Tournament and Louis Borg Cup.

Galea, the long-serving Athleta coach, echoed Ferrante’s views.

“It’s going to be a great final between two teams sharing top spot in the table,” Galea said.

“We have an edge in direct encounters but that doesn’t mean a thing for the final.

“This is an important competition for both organisations. We have won the KO 10 times and I hope that we make it 11 on Tuesday. I also hope that we do our sponsors proud like we have done in previous seasons.”

Both Ferrante and Galea are hopeful of having all their players available for Tuesday’s encounter which starts at 4.30pm.

Also present for yesterday’s media briefing, organised by the MBA as part of its drive to increase media exposure for the sport, were the two foreign players of the two finalists, namely Mike Bruesewitz, of Virtus, and Athleta’s Chad Patus.

“I’m looking forward to helping my club in this important game against Athleta,” Bruesewitz, who started the season with Slovenian team GA Grosuplje and played for Hapoel Jerusalem last year, said.

“I’m enjoying my time here. We have a good definition of what the team wants but we also have formidable opponents in front of us.”

Patus is also excited by the prospect of playing Virtus in the final of the 49th edition of the KO.

“It should be a really great game,” the Canadian forward said.

“We have played Virtus a few times and it has always been a close affair. They are a good team.

“They go up and down and have a lot of energy.”

Paul Sultana, the enterprising MBA president who came second in the official of the year category at this year’s Sport Malta Awards L-Għażliet Sportivi Nazzjonali, described the KO final as a clash “between an experienced team and a young side”.

Sultana was flanked by Bernard Vassallo, the association’s newly-appointed development and administrative officer.

He said that, with the co-operation of BOV, the MBA will honour the final’s Most Valuable Player who will be selected by a panel of basketball reporters and MBA officials.

Peter Perrotti, chief officer at BOV, reiterated the bank’s commitment towards supporting basketball as one of the three most popular sports in the country along with football and waterpolo.

“BOV has been associated with basketball since 1970 and we have been sponsoring this competition for the past four years,” Perrotti said.