THEY came, they conquered. The Russian basketballers made their Hongkong debut in the Super Commercial Cup and took the prestigeous trophy back to Moscow. Commercial sponsors Frankwell brought in the Moscow Select to lead their challenge in the popular invitational tournament, which attracted six Hongkong entries and teams from South Korea and the Philippines. While the other local clubs spent up to $1 million on American professionals to boost their title hopes, Frankwell used about half the amount in getting the Russians. Frankwell manager Fung Shiu-wai said: ''I want to give the fans something new and took a gamble in signing up the Russians, whom I have very little information on before they arrived. ''I'm really thrilled that we managed to pull it off when other teams are spending twice as much on players.'' Frankwell topped their preliminary group despite losing by four points to Seasonal, qualifying for the semi-finals against Greatwall which they easily won 101-76. Seasonal narrowly edged defending champions Burlingame 105-102 in the other semi-final to set up a rematch with Frankwell for the $60,000 first prize. The final, however, was twice postponed before the Russians put a stop to Seasonal's remarkable run of success this season in which they had already captured the Division A1 and the Senior Shield titles. The first postponement was because of Typhoon Koryn and it was again put off when Sergei Grezin shattered the fibre-glass backboard with a slam dunk during warm-up. Seasonal started strongly in the final and opened up a 28-17 lead after 11 minutes, but Frankwell clawed their way back into the match and closed the deficit to 42-40 at half-time. Igor Kudelin was in immaculate shooting form after the interval and led the Russians to a comfortable 99-89 victory with eight three-pointers for a personal tally of 35 points. Kudelin's impressive performance also earned him the Most Valuable Player award for the tournament. ''I'm proud to be the first manager to bring a Russian team to the territory and they've proven to be a big hit with the Hongkong fans,'' said a beaming Fung, who was overcome by emotion after Frankwell's triumph. ''The Russians were most gentlemanly on court and played clean basketball. They provided great entertainment and are worthy champions.''
