Tomorrow, on March 13, Tsmoki-Minsk host the most titled Kazakh club “Astana” (Nur Sultan) at the home arena “Falcon club” within the framework of the VTB United League. The game starts at 15:00.
The club history of the next rival of "Tsmoki-Minsk" is quite short - BC "Astana" was established in March 2011 with the support of the National Welfare Fund "Samruk-Kazyna". The team quickly took leading roles in the country and is now the most titled: it won the gold medals of the National League 9 times (2012-15, 2017-21), won the Kazakhstan Cup the same number of times (2011 14, 2017-21). “Astana” also became the bronze medalist of the FIBA Asian Champions Cup (2017). It has been participating in the VTB United League since the 2011/12 season, the highest achievement is reaching the quarterfinals in 2019.
The first head coach of "Astana" was Italian specialist Matteo Boniciolli, who worked at this post for two seasons. Then there were quite frequent shifts of head coaches: Serbian Aleksandar Trifunovic, Lithuanian Ramunas Butautas, Greeks Ilias Papatheodorou and Kostas Flevarakis, Russian Mikhail Karpenko, Macedonian Emil Rajkovic alternately rose to the captain's bridge. It was under the leadership of Raikovich that Astana reached the highest heights in the VTB United League, and Emil himself was recognized as the best coach of 2019 in the league.
True, after this success, the specialist moved to a similar position in the Saratov Avtodor. "Astana" was headed by 49-year-old Serbian Darko Russo. His track record includes work with clubs in Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Austria. Also in 2019, he led the Bahrain national team and led it to bronze medals in the championship of the Arab States of the Persian Gulf.
This season "Astana" is confidently leading in the National League of Kazakhstan. The only defeat, and technical 0:20, she received on March 5, failing to organize a home match at the site of the Saryarka velodrome with the closest pursuer – “Barsy Atyray”, for which Belarusians Andrei Rahozenka and Dzianis Vikentsyeu play.
As for the VTB United League, Astana is in eighth place with three wins in eleven matches. It had a great start of the championship, defeated St. Petersburg Zenit (83:69) and Polish Zelena Gurа at home (84:70) in October 2021. Another victory was gained recently: in mid-February in Nur-Sultan, Darko Russo's wards got the upper hand of Lokomotiv-Kuban Krasnodar (87:83). The hero of that meeting was the American guard Anthony Hickey, who made a "triple-double" of 43 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists. In 39 minutes spent on the court, he scored 7 "3-point shots", in total he made 28 shots from the field - almost half of the team's attempts, and finished the game with an efficiency of 50!
However, two days later at the same velodrome "Astana" was beaten hard by Kazan UNICS - 53:84. The defeat was the biggest for the team this season. And after it, "Astana" had almost a month's break.
The most noteworthy for the Kazakh team, perhaps, was the meeting on December 19 in Perm with Parma Parimatch. The winner in it was determined only after three (!) overtimes, and it was the Ural club - 108:101.
The main getter of points for the Nursultans was American guard Jaylen Burford: on average, he scored 25.1 points per game. However, in the winter transfer window, the basketball player was lured to Lokomotiv-Kuban. And now the trio of the most effective players of "Astana" looks like this:
Anthony Hickey — 22,8pts. + 4,9reb. + 7,4ast. + 2,5stl., eff. — 23,3;
Skylar Spencer — 8,6pts. + 8,8reb. + 1,5ast. + 1,8blk., eff. — 15,9;
Antonio Campbell — 9,3pts. + 5,7reb. + 1,2ast., eff. — 10,4.
It is notable that Anthony Hickey was supposed to play in the All-Stars Game of the VTB United League as part of the World Stars team, but due to personal circumstances he had to refuse to travel to Moscow.
The VTB United League calendar gives hope to Astana to improve its table performance in the second round: after a trip to Minsk, it will play five matches in a row at home.
If you look into the history of relations between Tsmoki-Minsk and Astana, it turns out that the rivals are absolutely worthy of each other - both have eight victories. Note that the last in the series belongs to the "dragons": in the final round of the last championship in Nur-Sultan, the Dragons defeated the hosts - 109:74, having obtained the biggest victory over the Kazakhs in all the years.
The general manager of the club is the Olympic champion Valery Tikhonenko. It is noteworthy that this season the colors of the team are defended by his son Mark, who returned to his homeland after studying at an American university. Tikhonenko Jr. has Russian citizenship and is a member of the Russian national team. In a recent 2023 World Cup qualifier against the Netherlands, Mark got into the squad, but did not enter the court.
For paired games with the Minsk team, Astana is preparing in the following line-up:
"ASTANA" (Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan)
Guards:
8. Anthony Hickey (USA, 22.11.1992. 180cm)
9. Vadim Chsherbak (Kazakhstan, 24.05.1993, 194cm)
10. Rustam Murzagaliyev (Kazakhstan, 24.05.1992, 190cm)
20. Andrey Litvinenko (Kazakhstan, 28.01.1997, 191cm)
25. Maxim Marchuk (Kazakhstan, 17.01.1994, 195cm)
99. Oleg Balashov (Kazakhstan, 17.05.1999, 185cm)
Forwards:
6. Skylar Spencer (USA, 11.07.1994, 206cm)
7. Nikolay Bazhin (Kazakhstan, 09.12.1990, 198cm)
13. Mark Tikhonenko (Russia, 13.03.1998, 206cm)
23. Robert Pan (Kazakhstan, 18.04.1995, 202cm)
33. Antomio Campbell (USA, 24.12.1994, 206cm)
47. Ruslan Aitkali (Kazakhstan, 19.12.1997, 195cm)
Centers:
22. Askar Maydekin (Kazakhstan, 28.05.1997, 203cm)
24. Dmitriy Gavrilov (Kazakhstan, 27.11.1986, 204cm)
Head coach - Darko Russo (Serbia)