On November 11, at 7:00 PM, MINSK will play against Pari Nizhny Novgorod in the VTB United League regular season at the Nagorny Sports Complex. Read more about the opponent in our preview.
History and achievements
The club was founded in 2000. One of the first significant achievements of the club was the victory in the qualification round of the Eurochallenge 2010/2011. And in the Russian Cup draw this season, Nizhny Novgorod took part in the Final Four for the first time in its history. In his first year of playing in the elite division, the team's head coach Zoran Lukic was recognized as the “Coach of the Year” in the BEKO Professional Basketball League.
The team's debut in the VTB United League took place in the 2011/2012 season. The 2013/14 season was the most successful for the team in national competitions – Nizhny Novgorod won silver medals in the Russian Championship and VTB United League, and also reached the semi-finals of the European Cup. In the 2014/2015 season BC Nizhny Novgorod played in the main European club tournament — the Euroleague, and immediately entered the TOP 16 of the tournament.
In the summer of 2022, the club rebranded, now the team performs under the name “Pari Nizhny Novgorod”.
Offseason
Over the summer, the club said goodbye to a number of players who remained in the League to defend the colors of other teams. Anton Astapkovich (CSKA), Sergey Toropov (Zenit), Ilya Platonov (MBA) and Pavel Antipov (PARMA-PARIS), as well as defenders Mikhail Kulagin (UNICS) and Anton Kardanakhishvili (Samara) have left.
It will be interesting for our fans to watch two pupils of our club system and players of the Belarusian national team – Maksim Salash and Vitaly Liutych. Maksim started his sports career in the reserve team, and then played for MINSK in the 2017/18 and 2019/20 playing seasons. In 2022, the forward moved to Pari Nizhny Novgorod from the Spanish San Pablo Burgos, in which he became the winner of the FIBA Champions League (2020/21) and the FIBA Intercontinental Cup (2021). Vitaliy Liutych also played for the Minsk team for several seasons in 2013-2016 and 2018-2020, in the 2020/21 season he played for the newcomer of the League – Samara, and the previous playing season was forced to miss due to injury.
American defenders Jermaine Love (PAOK Thessaloniki, Greece) and Divine Miles (Denain Voltaire, France), defender Anton Ponkrashov (Nazm Avaran, Iran) also joined the Nizhny Novgorod roster. The positions of forwards were taken by Dragan Apic (Zelena Gura, Poland) and Nikola Jovanovic, who had already played for the club in the previous season and returned to it in August 2022. Maxim Karvanen moved from Avtodor to Pari Nizhny Novgorod.
Head Coach
Zoran Lukic started his coaching career after finishing his playing career in 1994. At first he worked in the Serbian clubs Atlas and Peppetrol, and was also the coach of the Indian national team. In 2006, he headed the Russian national team (under 16) and the CSKA youth team.
Lukic has been leading the Nizhny Novgorod team for a total of 12 years. The Serbian specialist was the head coach from 2008 to 2014, as well as from 2017 to the present. In 2021, he headed the Russian national team.
Season 2022/23
Nizhny Novgorod met with MINSK at the start of the season in the Khayretdinov Cup. Then our team lost to the owners of the site with a score of 49:83. Now “Pari Nizhny Novgorod” is on the 6th line of the VTB United League standings with an equal number of wins and losses in 8 matches. The team won the duels with Yenisei (90:82), Avtodor (71:69), Astana (60:80) and Lokomotiv-Kuban (80:60). They lost to Pari NN to UNICS (57:75), Samara (52:90), MBA (80:87) and Zenit (76:66).
In terms of scoring points in the opposing team, Love Jermaine leads, the average statistics of the point guard per game: 16.1 points, 2.6 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.5 steals.
Alexandr Gankevich performs with 5.3 rebounds, and the forward also scores 7.3 points on average per game.
MINSK forward Benjamin-Pavel Dodoo on the upcoming game:
– We met with Pari Nizhny Novgorod twice in friendly games at the start of the season. The opposing team is very disciplined, plays strong defense, loves fast and team basketball. We are starting to find ways to win, implement the coach's instructions, we feel personal progress from match to match, so we are going to Nizhny Novgorod in a fighting mood to show our best game.
The roster of “Pari NN" (Nizhny Novgorod)
Defenders:
1. Divine Miles (02.25.1996, 180 cm, USA),
2. Jermaine Love (03.27.1989, 191 cm, USA),
6. Anton Ponkrashov (23.04.1986, 200 cm, Russia),
13. Dmitrii Khvostov (21.08.1989, 190 cm, Russia),
19. Ivan Strebkov (27.07.1991, 190 cm, Russia),
22. Mikhail Belenitskii (12.09.2002, 205 cm, Russia),
23. Maxim Lichutin (14.06.2000, 190 cm, Russia),
44. Evgenii Baburin (04.07.1987, 190 cm, Russia).
Forwards:
5. Alexandr Gankevich (05.08.1995, 201 cm, Russia),
7. Maksim Salash (06.05.1996, 207 cm, Belarus),
8. Dragan Apic (30.10.1995, 207 cm, Serbia),
9. Vitaly Liutych (09.05.1992, 198 cm, Russia),
10. Alexandr Chadov (20.11.2001, 204 cm, Russia),
12. Daniil Alekseev (17.04.2002, 200 cm, Russia),
17. Maxim Karvanen (30.10.1999, 204 cm, Russia),
32. Nikola Jovanovic (06.01.1994, 208 cm, Serbia).
Center:
15. Stepan Gontar (02.04.2002, 212 cm, Russia).
The head coach is Zoran Lukic (Serbia).
The game starts at 7:00 PM. The broadcast will be available on the VTB United League website, as well as on the TV channel “Start Triumph".