History 1947–present Location Sofia, Bulgaria Team manager Rumen Guninsky President Valentin Zlatev | Arena Capacity 12,395 Team colors White and Red Founded 1947 | |
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Nickname The Students (Студентите) Arenas/Stadiums Arena Armeec, Universiada Hall Leagues National Basketball League, FIBA Europe Cup | ||
PBC Academic (Bulgarian: ПБК "Академик") also known as Lukoil Academic after its title sponsor, is a Bulgarian professional basketball club based in the capital Sofia. They play their home games at the Universiade Hall or at the Pravets sports complex.
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Founded in 1947 as part of the Academic Sofia sports club, they have won the championship of Bulgaria 25 times and won the Bulgarian Cup 11 times. Among their international honours are two European Champions Cup finals (both lost to ASK Riga) 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.
Domestic
European
International
History
Basketball club Academic Sofia was founded in 1947 as a part of the students' sports association Academic and during its history of more than half a century it has won a just place among the best teams in the country. Under the guidance of ones of the most experienced coaches in Bulgarian basketball - Bozhidar Takev, Veselin Temkov, Neycho Neychev, Tzvetan Zheliazkov, Petko Marinov, etc., BC Academic is 20 times republic champion and nine times winner of the Bulgarian Cup. Along with the titles in the domestic championships and tournaments, naturally comes the international recognition. The basketball players of Academic have successfully played in the tournaments for the Cup of the European champions. With the coach Bozhidar Takev they were twice finalists against ACK Riga in 1958 and 1959. In 1957 in Paris the team of Academic became the world's students champion. During its entire existence basketball club Academic has always been a school for the professional improvement and constructive contribution of some of the best Bulgarian basketball players. Stars like Liubomir Panov, Georgi Panov, Viktor Radev, Nikola Ilov, Mihail Semov. Petar Lazarov, Dimitar Sahanikov, Georgi Barzakov, Nikola Atanasov, Atanas Golomeev, Temelaki Dimitrov, Stefan Filipov, Slavei Raychev, Vladimir Boyanov have left their permanent marks in the history of the Bulgarian basketball.
The excellent training of the Academic players and their complete devotion to the game have always been highly evaluated by our national basketball selectionists. Direct participants in the glorious moments of the Bulgarian basketball - the fifth place at the Olympic Games in Melbourne - 1956 and the vice-champion's title at the European Championship - Sofia'57 are the national players Liubomir Panov, Georgi Panov, Viktor Radev, Nikola Ilov, Mihail Semov, Petar Lazarov.
The glorious 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 oriented towards young and talented players, who under the clever guidance of the senior coach Petko Marinov and his assistants built the youngest team in the republican basketball. Renewed was also the work at the adolescents school of the club, from which some players have already shown considerable success at the home championships. The long-term strategy of LUKOIL Academic has shown its first results already in season 2001-2002. The talented players of Petko Marinov won the cup of the country and played the most attractive final in the play-offs in the championship for the last ten years. Today the name of LUKOIL Academic is again a symbol of good basketball. The ambitions of the club are the republican champion's title and the good performance at the European club tournaments.