On Sunday, March 20, “Tsmoki-Minsk” will play the next VTB United League match in the Falcon Club home court. The opponent is Krasnodar "Lokomotiv-Kuban". The game starts at 16.00.
The first meeting of the rivals took place at the start of the season: on October 2 in Krasnodar, the "railwaymen" were a little luckier — 92:87. Since then, a lot of water has flowed away, and many important events have happened.
In particular, due to failures in the tournaments where “Loko” played, the contract with head coach Evgeny Pashutin was terminated in mid-December. Instead, his former assistant, 47-year-old Serbian specialist Branko Maksimovich, ascended to the bridge. At one time, he coached the teams "Banik", "Inter" (Bratislava), the youth team "Crvena Zvezda", FMP, "Mladost", "Vrsac", "Handlova", and since February 2021 he has been working in the "Lokomotiv-Kuban" system.
By mutual consent, on the eve of the New Year, the club parted with American defender Quinn Cook. But he signed a contract under the "1 + 1" system with his compatriot Jaylen Barford, who previously played for “Astana” in Kazakhstan.
In January, the “railwaymen '' found themselves in a difficult personnel situation after three legionnaires were injured at once — Greg Whittington, Johnathan Motley and Stanton Kidd. They had to bet on young players.
At the VTB United League All-Star, two representatives of the club performed: Errick McCollum played for the "Stars of the World" team, and Stanislav Ilnitskiy played for the "Stars of Russia" team. Johnathan Motley was also supposed to take part in the holiday weekend, but he was prevented by an injury.
At the end of February, the Russian national team held a 2023 World Cup qualification match with the Netherlands.So to prepare for it, Stanislav Ilnitskiy, Andrey Martyuk and Vladislav Demchenko were included in the roster of Russians.
At the end of last month, Lithuanian vice-president Ginas Rutkauskas officially parted with “Loko”, and a couple of days ago, American center Alan Williams left the team for family reasons.
In the VTB United League, the team ranks sixth, having a neutral balance of wins and losses - 6/6. The Krasnodar team held the previous meeting in Krasnoyarsk, where they defeated Yenisei with great difficulty — 86:82. Objectively, everything was going to defeat, the guests acted separately, did not work enough in defense, managed to concede 34 points in the second quarter. However, at the end of the match, “Loko” was literally pulled to victory by the inimitable Errick McCollum.
A foreign trio performs solo in the statistical table of the best snipers of the team:
Errick McCollum - 21.2 + 2.7 reb + 5.0 ast + 1.2 stl;
Johnathan Motley — 19.0 + 6.4 reb + 2.1 ast + 1.0 block;
Stanton Kidd - 13.7 + 4.3 reb + 1.2 ast + 0.9 stl;
Before the match with the Dragons, Branko Maksimovich has the following squad:
“LOKOMOTIV-KUBAN” (Krasnodar)
Guards:
0. Jaylen Barford (USA, 23.01.1996, 198)
1. Alexandr Shcherbenev (3.10.2000, 187)
3. Errick McCollum (USA, 22.01.1988, 188)
13. Darius Thompson (USA, 4.05.1995, 192)
31. Ivan Paunic (Serbia, 27.01.1987, 194)
33. Zakhar Vedischev (9.07.2000, 196)
35. Vladislav Emchenko (3.10.1999, 194)
Forwards:
2. Greg Whittington (USA, 02.17.1993, 203)
6. Johnathan Motley (USA, 04.05.1995, 206)
7. Stanton Kidd (USA, 03.18.1992, 200)
11. Stanislav Ilnitskiy (02.24.1994, 202)
23. Sergey Dolinin (16.02.2000, 204)
25. Andrei Martiuk (10.06.2000, 211)
37. Danil Sheyanov (21.10.2003, 201)
69. Kirill Parilov (04.07.2002, 198)
Center:
12. Kirill Yelatontsev (12.07.2002, 207)
18. Valery Kalinov (1.08.1999, 212)
The Head coach is Branko Maksimovic (Serbia).