After the completion of the first stage and a short break, on February 1, the MINSK men's team will play the debut match of the second stage of the VTB United League regular season in Astana against the team of the same name.
In the second stage, the participating teams of the League are divided into two groups, and in pool “B” 6 teams will compete for the right to enter the playoffs. Read more about the opponent in our preview.
Season 2022/23
On January 28, Astana held its first match of the second stage and lost to Enisey with a score of 67:83. In the current playing season, Oleg Kiselev's wards won 4 victories in 23 duels. Our teams are side by side in the standings, and it is extremely necessary for both rivals to win as many victories as possible in each upcoming match.
Since our last meeting, which took place on January 11, also in Kazakhstan, Daniil Aksenov left Astana (the defender moved to MBA), and no further news about the strengthening of the squad has yet followed.
Legionnaires continue to be stable leaders in the Kazakh team. Michael Myers is among the top 3 players in the League in rebounds on average per game (8.5), the American center also demonstrates the following averages: points - 12.6, assists – 1.5. Markell Johnson ranks 4th in the ranking of the most productive players in the League in terms of the number of interceptions (average 2.0 per game), also a point guard on average, he scores 12.3 points per match, makes 3.4 rebounds and 4.4 assists. And in the last match with Yenisei, the Myers-Johnson duo scored 33 points in the team standings.
The average age of the team is 28 years, the average height is 195.4 cm.
MINSK defender Jovan Sljivancanin: “This is the first game of the 2nd stage, so we are all very excited and excited about the upcoming ten games. I think we, as a team, have become much better than a few weeks or months ago. In terms of interaction, we had a great last two games before the break and a busy week of training, so we just need to transfer this to the match with Astana, where we have a good chance of winning if we play the way we did in the near future.“
The opponent 's pre-game roster
"Astana" (Astana, Kazakhstan):
Guards:
2. Markell Johnson (25.08.1998, 188 cm, USA),
3. Rustam Murzagaliev (24.05.1992, 190 cm, Kazakhstan),
8. Kwame Vaughn (31.05.1990, 191 cm, USA),
9. Vadim Sherbak (24.05.1993, 194 cm, Kazakhstan),
20. Andrey Litvinenko (28.01.1997, 191 cm, defender, Kazakhstan),
76. Alexandr Orazbekov (30.07.2002, 180 cm, Kazakhstan),
99. Oleg Balashov (07.05.1999, 185 cm, Kazakhstan).
Forwards:
21. Roman Marchuk (04.03.1993, 198 cm, Kazakhstan),
23. Valeriy Likhodey (23.10.1986, 204 cm, Russia),
25. Maksim Marchuk (17.01.1994, 195 cm, Kazakhstan),
47. Ruslan Aitkali (19.12.1997, 195 cm, Kazakhstan).
Centers:
15. Michael Myers (02.07.1992, 206 cm, USA),
24. Dmitriy Gavrilov (27.11.1986, 204 cm, Kazakhstan),
35. Igor Kanygin (30.06.1994, 207 cm, Russia),
55. Askar Maydekin (28.05.1997, 203 cm, Kazakhstan).
The head coach is Oleg Kiselev (Russia).
The meeting starts at 17:00 Moscow time. The broadcast of the match will be available on the VTB United League website and the Belarus 5 TV channel. We are rooting for MINSK!