Club News

The first game of the second stage of the Euroleague was without a doubt cause for concern. Looking at the CSKA-Unicaja game, CSKA has to start all over again in the tournament. Meaning that the team’s previous achievements remain in the past – including victories of Olimpiacos in Athens, a blowout of Ulker in Moscow, and a difficult win over the latter in Turkey.

There is no direct connection in winter between Malaga and Moscow. And that is the reason why CSKA went to Spain by charter flight. But still the trip took the team rather long, almost 6 hours in the air. However, the pilots did their best. CSKA arrived in Malaga one hour earlier than scheduled.

Today in the Catalonian capital, the PBC CSKA general director held two important meetings. In the morning, Sergey Kushchenko had discussions with Euroleague marketing consultants Marshall Glickman and Douglas Piper.

The scenery of the second game CSKA – Avtodor this week was different from the match on Thirsday. In the first game the club from Saratov managed to create an intrigue that however has quickly disappeared.

The game promised to be a very interesting one. There were two reasons for that. The first one is the fact that just week ago Avtodor won a game against reigning Russian champion Ural Great in Perm. The second was the beginning of the game.

Yesterday CSKA, Scavolini from Italy and the company representing Chris Gatling fixed all the questions concerning Gatling’s transfer to Scavolini.

Only a dreamer and a great Universitet supporter could suppose the team from Surgut to win this game or to qualify to the next round of the Cup.

Both teams did not start the game well. The Army Club did not pay enough attention to defense and as a result was loosing until the middle of the first quarter. The person who put CSKA ahead was power forward Darius Songaila who posted up a three pointer with 4.37 to go in the first period – 13-11.

There was a drawing of the Euroleague today in Barcelona. CSKA is in the same group with Efes Pilsen from Turkey, Unikaja from Spain and Cibona from Croatia.

Universitet vs CSKA: 48-97

Tomorrow at 14.00 (Moscow time) CSKA is going to play the first game of 1/8 finals of Russian Cup against Universitet from Surgut. The team is already in Surgut. There are 10 players in the roster. They are forwards Sergey Monia, Victor Khryapa, Darius Songaila, centers Alexandr Bashminov, Aleksey Savrasenko, guards Evgeny and Zakhar Pashutin, Nikolay Padius, Egor Vialtsev, Theodoros Papaloukas.

In the past week CSKA earned two Euroleague victories: over Real Madrid and Virtus Bologna. The margin of victory for the Army team was roughly the same in both games. In Madrid CSKA won by 13 points, in Moscow by 15.

The Italian club Virtus is CSKA's opponent in the Army team's final home game in the first round of the Euroleague. Virtus will have two practices in the Russian capital: a morning and evening one. Center David Andersen will not be able to play in the game due to a shoulder injury. Furthermore, newly acquired guard Eric Murdock has experienced back problems.

Only at the very beginning of the game was EURAS able to compete seriously with the Army team. Already in the opening minutes CSKA jumped ahead. They had already doubled their opponents' score in the first five minutes. The team from the Urals tried to catch CSKA - 13-8. But it was in vain.