Yesterday evening CSKA junior team went to basketball Mecca in Lithuania – Kaunas, where international tournament “Sabonis Cup-2005” will be held.
There are eleven players in the squad: guards Konstantin Babynin, Dmitriy Golovin, Ilya Gusev, Denis Polokhin and Alexey Shved; forwards Maxim Zakharov, Roman Pekhov, Alexandr Khodorov and Semen Shashkov; centers Ivan Nelyubov and Alexandr Tyumentsev.
Eight teams will be divided into two groups. In first – A – Sweden Soder Basket, Latvian Riga and Marciulionis BA will keep CSKA company; in second – B – Ukrainian BC Kyiv, Czech BK NH Ostrava, German Brandenburg BA and Sabonis BS will compete with each other. The regulations are simple – two best teams from both groups will qualify to semifinals, which winners will contest for the trophy.
The tournament will last from September, 28 to October, 1. On the first day our youngsters will with meet with their coevals from Riga at 16:30 local time. And on Thursday CSKA junior team have two duels during 24 hours – at first with Lithuanians at 12:30 and then with Swedes at 17:30.
Commentary of Coach Andrey Maltsev:
- At every level CSKA always has only one goal – to win. Especially, if competition is international. We will represent not only the club - the whole country, so we have a determined mood to battle for the first prize. But at the same time we don’t forget that our main target is spending properly preseason preparation time. I think “Sabonis Cup-2005” will be a perfect test of the work that we’ve done for last 1,5 months. And guys will gain a useful experience in games against rivals from other countries.
VTB Teams:
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