Our men's team will spend the first day of winter in the Russian SC “Nagorny” and will play in the VTB United League match against Pari Nizhny Novgorod. Read more about how things are going in the opponent's camp in our preview.
Roster
The first newcomer in the 2023/24 season for Nizhny Novgorod was point guard Glenn Causey. In the previous year, playing for the Riga WEF, the American managed to play several games in the Champions League. The club also signed a contract with American defender Bryon Allen, who played for Perm PARMA last season.
Vladimir Ivlev, Anton Ponkrashov and Andrey Vorontsevich also returned to the Russian club, contracts were signed with Alexey Babushkin and forward Pavel Gankevich, the younger brother of Alexander Gankevich, who has been playing for Nizhny Novgorod for four years.
The club also attracted young players to the main squad: Sergey Zotkin and Timofey Rudovsky.
Season 2023/24
Zoran Lukic's wards started the season with three wins over MINSK, PARMA and Runa. But after that, unexpectedly for many, Paris NN began a series of 9 defeats, which the Nizhny Novgorod player failed to interrupt in matches with Astana, Enisei, Uralmash, Loko, Avtodor, Samara, MBA, Zenit and CSKA. Previously, the team has never lost 9 times in a row in its history, and now the team has shifted to 13th place in the standings. The opponent's squad weakened due to injuries to several leaders: Apich, Vorontsevich, Strebkov, Khvostov and Chadov missed the previous matches.
Minsk residents at this time, despite the lack of victories, continue to add quality and interaction on the site. The most colorful evidence of this was the last game of MINSK against Loko, when our team played a double-digit gap in the score several times and fought with a difference of only 2 points in the last minutes of the match. It will be interesting for fans to watch the game of our newcomer Aleksandar Zecevic against his former teammates.
Currently, Bryon Allen is leading the Paris NN team with average statistics of 15.0 points, 2.6 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 1.2 steals in almost 26 minutes on the floor. For 9 games, heavy forward Andrey Vorontsevich demonstrated average statistics of 11.7 points, 5.9 rebounds, 2.2 assists in just over 25 minutes on the floor.
MINSK center Aleksandar Zecevic: ”I really like our team energy and practice in defense before the game with Pari Nizhny Novgorod. We need to focus and work hard. The opposing team plays tough basketball, is very disciplined in defense and offense. It will be their home game and it will definitely be difficult for us to resist them. But, of course, we hope to win. We are looking forward to the fight.”
The composition of the opponent:
"Pari Nizhny Novgorod", Nizhny Novgorod
Defenders
0. Glenn Causey, 183 cm, 02/17/1992, USA,
2. Bryon Allen, 191 cm, 01.05.1992, USA,
3. Efim Vorontsov, 178 cm, 15.09.2004, Russia,
12. Anton Ponkrashov, 200 cm, 23.04.1986, Russia,
13. Dmitry Khvostov, 190 cm, 21.08.1989, Russia,
19. Ivan Strebkov, 189 cm, 27.07.1991, Russia,
44. Evgeny Baburin, 190 cm, 04.07.1987, Russia,
55. Sergey Zotkin, 190 cm, 09.09.2003, Russia.
Forwards
4. Pavel Gankevich, 198 cm, 22.04.2003, Russia,
5. Alexandr Gankevich, 201 cm, 05.08.1995, Russia,
10. Alexandr Chadov, 204 cm, 20.11.2001, Russia,
17. Aleksa Novakovic, 200 cm, 30.08.1996, Serbia,
22. Mikhail Belenitsky, 204 cm, 12.09.2002, Russia,
33. Andrey Vorontsevich, 207 cm, 17.07.1987, Russia.
Centers
8. Dragan Apic, 207 cm, 03.10.1995, Serbia,
11. Vladimir Ivlev, 207 cm, 02/28/1990, Russia.
The head coach is Zoran Lukic, Serbia.
The game will start at 19:00, the broadcast will be available on the VTB United League website and Belarus 5 TV channel. We are rooting for MINSK!