PBC Academic

Academic Metropol-Region
Nickname	Metropol (Метропол)
Leagues	BBL
Founded	1947; 79 years ago (1947)
History	PBC Academic (1947–2020)
Arena	Universiada Hall
Capacity	4,000
Location	Sofia, Bulgaria
Team colors	Yellow and Blue
President	Viktor Vladov
Team manager	Viktor Vladov, Georgi Petrov
Head coach	Eduard Valchev
Championships	26 Bulgarian Leagues 11 Bulgarian Cups 1 Bulgarian Super Cups 1 International Students' Cup
Home Away

BC Academic Metropol Region (Bulgarian: БК "Академик" Метропол-Рийджън) is a reestablished Bulgarian professional basketball club based in the capital Sofia.

In April 2022, Academic has been reborn and rebranded by the new owners, the German-Bulgarian ex-professional basketball players Viktor Vladov and Georgi Petrov. Founded in 1947 as part of the Academic Sofia sports club, they have won the championship of Bulgaria 26 times, won the Bulgarian Cup 11 times and won the Bulgarian Super Cup 1 time. Among their international honours are two FIBA European Champions Cup finals (both lost to Rīgas ASK) in 1958 and 1959 and an International Students' Cup in 1957.

In 2000, the team were renamed Lukoil Academic as a sponsorship deal was signed with Russian oil giant Lukoil, and quickly established themselves as dominant in the Bulgarian Championship. Since then they have been a regular ULEB Cup participant, and won the FIBA Europe Regional Challenge Cup Conference South in 2003. In September 2020, Academic withdrew from the NBL and announced that it will no longer maintain a professional team.

They played their home games at the Universiade Hall. After the rebranding and reestablishing to "BC Academic Metropol Region" in April 2022, the club competes in the Bulgarian A-Grupa.

History

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Basketball club Academic Sofia was founded in 1947 as a part of the students' sports association, Academic. Under coach Bozhidar Takev, they were twice finalists in the European Championships against Rīgas ASK in 1958 and 1959.

The tradition of the club was revived again in 2000 when Lukoil Bulgaria became the main sponsor of the team. The selection of Lukoil Academic was originated towards young players, who with senior coach Petko Marinov and his assistants built the youngest team in the republican's basketball league. The renewed school was also known for the work by adolescents of the club, for which some players^[who?] had already shown considerable success at the during home championships. The players of Petko Marinov won the cup of their country and played the most attractive final in the play-offs in the championship, for the last ten years. The modo of the club consists of the republican champion's titles and, the one of the best performances in the European club tournaments. In 2018, Lukoil announced its sponsor deal with Levski Sofia, while leaving Academic with a smaller budget.

Honours

Season by season

Notable players

Head coaches

• Bozhidar Takev
• Veselin Temkov
• Neycho Neychev
• Tsvetan Zhelyazkov
• Petko Marinov
• Željko Lukajić
• Marin Dokuzovski
• Eduard Valchev

References

1. ↑ "Академик А1 прекрати дейност". basketball.bg. 16 September 2020. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
2. ↑ "Нов проект на име Академик атакува българския баскетбол". Sportal.bg (in Bulgarian). Retrieved 2022-05-04.
3. ↑ "Lukoil Bulgaria is the new sponsor of Levski". Sportando.com. 2 January 2018. Retrieved 2 January 2018.
4. ↑ "Нов проект на име Академик атакува българския баскетбол". Sportal.bg (in Bulgarian). Retrieved 2022-05-04.
5. ↑ "Академик - Метропол с нова заявка за силно представяне в ББЛ". Sportal.bg (in Bulgarian). Retrieved 2022-05-04.

External links

• Lukoil Academic at Basketball-bg.com (in Bulgarian)
• Lukoil Academic at BulgarianBasket.com (in English)
• Eurobasket.com PBC Academic Lukoil Page