Sabonis Cup-2005: no defeats in group stage

CSKA junior team confidently finished preliminary round of Sabonis Cup-2005. On the second day of the tournament rivals from Sweden and Lithuania couldn’t prevent our players, as they reached 100-percent rating of victories:

ЦСКА – Marciulionis BA: 73-65

CSKA: Shved (20), Gusev (11), Golovin (10 + 7 reb + 5 as), Nelyubov (9 + 7 reb), Zakharov (9), Pekhov (7), Khodorov (4 + 10 reb), Shashkov (2), Tyumentsev (0 + 6 reb), Babynin (0), Polokhin (0)

ЦСКА – Soder Basket (Sweden): 74-60
CSKA: Tyumentsev (16 + 11 reb + 4 bs), Babynin (14), Gusev (11), Nelyubov (8), Shashkov (6), Khodorov (5), Zakharov (4), Shved (4), Pekhov (3), Polokhin (3 + 4 as + 6 st)

Team coach Andrei Maltsev sums up CSKA performance in group:

- Besides the necessary result is achieved, I am not too happy with the way we play. Most of all I don’t like guys’ neglect of their duties – they started feeling relaxed too fast, they lose concentration, and because of this little collapses sometimes happen – like today. A inexplicable slump followed after the first minutes success - so we had a very nervous ending. The quality of our basketball doesn’t satisfy me too – I’d prefer watching a team-work more than unreasoned movements from individuals. So I don’t want to distinguish anybody because I have some grudges against all of them.

In second game we decided to give more playing time to guys who were less involved in the morning with the purpose of sharing equally loading between everyone. Boys looked so-so, especially if it is remembered that our opponent’s level wasn’t high.

Unfortunately, we have some sad news – Dmitry Golovin, who even didn’t dress up for evening match, aggravated his injury. His participation in next games is doubtful. It is a pity – he was ok in his playing interval.

Tomorrow we’ll meet Ukrainian BC Kyiv – it is a well prepared, physically tough team that shows nice basketball here. I think it’ll be an intense game.