Mellieħa Libertas Spalding were declared winners of the BOV Knock Out after the Malta Basektball Association announced that Hibernians, their scheduled opponents in Sunday’s final, are unable to honour this game.
“The BOV KO Final between Hibernians v Mellieha will not be held as Hibernians are unable to honour this game due to their suspended players and injured players,” the Malta Basketball Association announced in a statement.
“Therefore Mellieha Libertas Spalding are declared Winners of the BOV National Men Knock Out, season 2021-2022.”
Mellieħa and Hibernians were due to face off in the Knock Out final on Sunday.
But the build-up to the final was marred by the events in the Men’s League sem-finals that saw both Hibernians and Depiro booted out of the competition after they were found guilty of bringing the game into disrepute with their actions in the final six minutes of the match.
The incident, which took place for the final six minutes of the game, refers to the way both sets of players failed to score a single point as well as committing numerous violations and turnovers.
In their ruling, the Malta Basketball Association also handed a three-match ban to five Hibernians players, namely Peter Shoults, Anton Axiaq, Keith Dimech, Luke Farrugia, and Neil Cassar
