Košarkaški klub Vršac Meridianbet ( sr-cyr, Кошаркашки клуб Вршац Меридианбет), commonly referred to as KK Vršac Meridianbet, is a men's professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

club based in

Vršac Vršac ( sr-Cyrl, Вршац, ) is a city in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. As of 2022, the city urban area had a population of 31,946, while the city administrative area had 45,462 inhabitants. It is located in the geographical ...

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

. They are currently competing in the

Basketball League of Serbia The Basketball League of Serbia (), commonly abbreviated as KLS, is a Serbian basketball league system, top-tier men's professional basketball Sports league, league in Serbia. Founded in 2006. It is currently not run by the Basketball Federation o ...

. Their home arena is the Millennium Centar, with a capacity of 4,400. Over the years, the club competed under different names, mostly after sponsor companies, carrying for an extended period of time the name of pharmaceutical company Hemofarm.

History

The club was founded in 1946 under the name KK Jedinstvo. From 1959 to 1967, the club competed under the name KK Mladost, when the name got changed to KK Inex Brixol due to sponsorship reasons. In the 1968–69 season, they won first place in the Vojvodina lower-league. In 1977, the club changed its name again, this time to KK Agropanonija. Four years later, in 1981, they again became champions of Vojvodina, which has won them the right to participate in the First B League, where they competed under the name KK Vršac. In 1989, Inex Hemofarm became principal sponsor and club changed its name to KK Inex.

The Hemofarm years: 1992–2012

Under the sponsorship of the Hemofarm Group since 1992, the club went from average participants of the lower leagues in

Vojvodina Vojvodina ( ; sr-Cyrl, Војводина, ), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an Autonomous administrative division, autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia, located in Central Europe. It lies withi ...

to one of the leading clubs in the country. In the first season under the name of KK Hemofarm, they competed in the First League of Vojvodina and from year to year, went a step forward. In the 1995–96 season, team was led by Marin Sedlaček, a young and ambitious professional, who led the team to the higher league. Hemofarm's top league status was achieved in the 1997–98 season, under the guidance of coach Slobodan Lukić. The first season among the elite kept their survival, but the following season, 1999–2000, they finished fourth in the standings, providing a first participation in Europe – in the Korać Cup. As newcomers to the competition, the 2000–01 season, led by coach Željko Lukajić, they reached the finals, where they were stopped by

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's Unicaja Málaga, which was headed by Božidar Maljković. That same year, the team's quality was confirmed with placement at the National Cup final tournament, which was organized in

for the first time, at the opening of the Millennium Centar. In the 2001–02 season, they played the playoff semifinal of the national championship, where they were, this time, stopped by Budućnost after five dramatic games. In the next season, they played in the final of the National Cup, where they were defeated by FMP, and in the 2003–04 season, were also close to the title, playing National League finals against Partizan. The "Black and Whites" celebrated series victory in the fourth game of the playoffs, with the uncertain final basket by Vlado Šćepanović scored with the sound of sirens for the overall final series 3–1 win. The 2004–05 season was the most successful in the club's history. As rookies, they won the regional

Adriatic League The ABA League, renamed the ABA League First Division in 2017, is the top-tier regional men's professional basketball league that originally featured clubs from former Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, ...

. Hemofarm finished the regular season in first place in the standings, and at the Final Eight in

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

, they eliminated Bosna, FMP and Partizan in the final. That same season,

was again hosting the final tournament of the National Cup, but Hemofarm lost to Budućnost in the first game. In the ULEB Cup, they reached the semifinals, where they were stopped by the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

team Makedonikos. In the 2005–06 season, they played once again in the ULEB Cup semifinals and took part in the Adriatic League Final Eight. In 2006–07, they played in the semifinals of the National Cup and the Adriatic League semifinals. In the 2008–09 season, the team was taken over by Stevan Karadžić who led them to the semifinals in all competitions –

Radivoj Korać Cup The Radivoj Korać Cup ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Куп Радивоја Кораћа, Kup Radivoja Koraća) is the men's national basketball cup of Serbia. It is run by the Basketball Federation of Serbia and is named after Serbian basketball legend and ...

ABA League The ABA League, renamed the ABA League First Division in 2017, is the top-tier regional men's professional basketball league that originally featured clubs from former Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedoni ...

and Eurocup. Reaching the Eurocup Final Eight in

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was a great success for Serbian basketball, especially as Hemofarm had the youngest team in the whole competition. In the first match of the tournament in

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the "Pharmacists" have made another surprise, defeating favored Dynamo Moscow, but are uncertain in the semifinals in a precarious lost to

Lietuvos rytas ''Lietuvos rytas'' (lit. 'Morning of Lithuania') is a Lithuanian daily newspaper. History and profile "Lietuvos rytas" was established in 1990 on a basis of newspaper "Komjaunimo tiesa". The paper is printed in Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is ...

, which went on to win the competition. In the middle of the 2011–12 season, Hemofarm Group stopped to finance the club after 20 years because of the financial crisis in the company. All of the players were informed that they are free to leave the club.

KK Vršac (2012–present)

In the summer of 2012, the club changed its name back to KK Vršac. A few days after the end of the 2023/2024 season, on April 16, the club announced that it had signed a title sponsorship agreement with Meridianbet.

Sponsorship naming

The club has had several denominations through the years due to its sponsorship: * Hemofarm STADA (2007–2012) * Vršac Swisslion (2014–2016) * Vršac Meridianbet (2024 - )

Logos

File:Kkhemofarm.svg, 1992–2012 File:Kkvrsac.png, 2012–present

Players

Current roster

Players on the
NBA draft The NBA draft is the National Basketball Association's (NBA) annual event, dating back to 1947 BAA draft, 1947, in which the teams in the league can Draft (sports), draft players who declare for the draft and that are Eligibility for the NBA dr ...

Coaches

;Hemofarm (1992–2012) * Miroslav Popov (1993–1994) * Miroslav Kanjevac (1994–1995) * Marin Sedlaček (1995–1996) * Ivan Jeremić (1996–1997) * Slobodan Lukić (1997–1998) * Željko Lukajić (1998–2005) * Luka Pavićević (2005) * Miroslav Nikolić (2005–2008) * Vlada Vukoičić (2008) * Stevan Karadžić (2008–2010) * Željko Lukajić (2010–2012) * Dušan Gvozdić (2012, interim) * Nebojša Bogavac (2012) ;Vršac (2012–present) * Oliver Popović (2012–2014) * Dušan Gvozdić (2014–2015) * Miloš Pejić (2015–2016) * Milan Gurović (2016) * Vladimir Đokić (2016–2018) * Goran Topić (2018) * Mihajlo Mitić (2018) * Branko Maksimović (2018) * Darko Kostić (2019–2020) * Zoran Todorović (2020) * Vladimir Lučić (2020–2021) * Vladimir Đokić (2021–2022) * Siniša Matić (2022) * Vladimir Đokić (2022–present)

Season-by-season

Trophies and awards

Trophies

* Serbia and Montenegro League **''Runners-up (2)'' – 2004, 2005 *

**''Runners-up (3)'' –

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

**''Runners-up (3)'' – 2003, 2006, 2008 *

**Winners (1) –

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

**''Runners-up (1)'' –

FIBA Korać Cup The FIBA Korać Cup was an annual basketball club competition held by FIBA Europe between the 1971–72 and 2001–02 seasons. It was the European professional club basketball system, third-tier level club competition in European basketball, a ...

**''Runners-up (1)'' –

2001 The year's most prominent event was the September 11 attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror. The United States led a Participan ...

Notable players

* Milan Mačvan * Boban Marjanović * Stefan Marković * Darko Miličić * Marko Simonović * Danilo Anđušić * Mladen Jeremić * Zlatko Bolić * Petar Božić * Đorđe Gagić * Nemanja Dangubić * Miloš Dimić * Raško Katić * Predrag Šuput * Vladimir Tica *

Milenko Topić Milenko Topić (; born 6 March 1969) is a Serbian professional basketball coach and former player. Playing career A power forward, Topić spent most of his professional career playing in the YUBA League, representing Profikolor, BFC Beočin ...

Nemanja Krstić Nemanja Krstić ( sr-cyr, Немања Крстић, born March 2, 1993) is a Serbian professional basketball player for Kapfenberg Bulls of the Austrian Basketball Superliga. He also represent the Serbian national basketball team in the intern ...

* Bojan Krstović * Nikola Milutinov * Nenad Mišanović * Luka Mitrović * Jovan Novak * Miljan Pavković * Slavko Stefanović *

Vanja Plisnić Vanja Plisnić ( sr-cyr, Вања Плиснић; born July 28, 1980) is a Serbian former professional basketball player. He is a 2,05 m tall Power forward (basketball), power forward. With KK FMP (1991–2011), FMP Železnik Plisnić won the 20 ...

* Petar Popović * Dragoljub Vidačić * Vladan Vukosavljević * Jasmin Hukić * Aleksej Nešović * Marko Šutalo * Saša Vasiljević *

Bojan Bakić Bojan Bakić (Serbian Cyrillic: Бојан Бакић; born January 8, 1983) is a Montenegrin professional basketball player for Barsy Atyrau of the Kazakhstan Basketball Championship. Professional career The Montenegrin guard started his prof ...

* Nebojša Bogavac * Miloš Borisov * Ivan Maraš * Nemanja Radović * Boris Savović * Goran Jagodnik * Nebojša Joksimović * Rawle Marshall * Márton Báder * Jerome Jordan * Moon Tae-Jong * Mustafa Abdul-Hamid * Robert Conley * Vonteego Cummings * Gerrod Henderson * Kyle Hill * Trey Johnson * Rashad Wright

International record

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kk Vrsac Vrsac Basketball teams in Yugoslavia Basketball teams established in 1946 Sport in Vršac Companies based in Vršac