Next weekend on May 18 and 19, in the capital on the court of Nazarbayev University, the 1/2 final match of the National League playoff series between «Astana» Presidential Basketball Club and «Tobol» Kostanay will take place.
According to the results of the regular championship, the teams ranked from 1st to 4th continued to contest for the championship: the winners of the regular season “Astana” (1) will start defending their title with a series of games against Kostanay “Tobol” « (4)., The last-season vice-champions of «Barsy Atyrau» (2) and the winner of the Highest League of the 2017/2018 season «Almaty Legion» (3) will compete for the another place in the finals. All stages of the playoffs, including the final and the matches for the third place, will take place in a series of two games in a home-away system.
Rival:
«Tobol» is a Kazakhstan professional men's basketball club from Kostanay city, founded in 2003 on the initiative of the former director of the Kostanay confectionary factory «Bayan Sulu» Yevgeniy Alexandrovich Boger and Emir Akhmedovich Emirov, a general director of Construction Company «Negiz-Akmola» LLP.
Achievements:
- The winner of the Championship of Kazakhstan: 2003/2004
- Silver medalist of Kazakhstan championship: 2004/2005, 2005/2006, 2006/2007, 2008/2009, 2009/2010, 2010/2011
- The winner of the Highest League: 2013/2014, 2016/2017
- Higher League Silver Medalist: 2010/2011
- Winner of the Cup of Kazakhstan: 2005
- Silver winner of Kazakhstan Cup: 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2019
- Bronze medalist of the Cup of Kazakhstan: 2018
Comparison of the teams:
“Astana” had completed the regular championship as an indisputable leader, gaining victory in all 36 matches, while their rivals in the semi-finals finished 4th with 22 victories and 14 losses. As for the personal games, in all 6 matches of the regular season, Emil Raikovic’s wards dominated over «Tobol» and beat them by an average of 15 points, except for the second match of the season, when Kostanay team managed to lose only 6 points. The teams met this season at the Kazakhstan Cup in Almaty, when “Tobol” held by the skin of their teeth and lost just one point to “Astana”.
«Tobol» leaders:
The undisputed leader of the Kostanay team is Anton Bykov. Anton is one of the main players of the National Team of Kazakhstan, and in the framework of the regular championship of the National League, he became the most effective and scored the most points, averaging more than 19 points per game. He also was second to none under the basket in the “regular season”, he became the leader in rebounds, gaining an average of more than 9 rebounds per game. Also worth noting is the point guard of Kostanay Shaim Kuanov, who is also a member of the National Team of Kazakhstan, and in the regular season, he had most of the assists — an average of more than 5 and a half assists per game. Russian power forward Dmitriy Khodov, who plays well under the basket and can score from long range and has the best results in 3 point field throws in the regular season. For the fourth year in a row, Alexander Derbusch, who has long been the captain of Kostanay and hung up his playing uniform in the closet only two years ago, has been playing as a playing coach for two seasons, for the fourth time in a row.
Story:
Our team has already played with Kostanay team in the playoffs of the National League, and both times also in the semifinals: in the 2016/17 season at the Final 4, «Astana» confidently won «Tobol» with a score of 99:70, and back in the season 2011/12 in the series of 3 matches, the capital basketball players played very confidently, gaining an average of 25 points in each match. This season, «Astana» also beat «Kostanay» in all six games, and only in one match Kostanay were resisting to our team, but the latter coped with them.
Thus, analyzing the chronology of the teams' games, it is possible to make an unequivocal conclusion that our guys are the favorites in the upcoming semi-final, and “Tobol” will have to try hard to fight for the ticket to the final of the National Championship.
We invite all our fans this Friday to the stands of Nazarbayev University court (53 Kabanbai Batyr Ave.). The beginning of the first game on May 18 at 15:00, and the second match of the series on May 19 will begin at 14:00 Nur-Sultan time. Live broadcast of matches will be available on the main page of our site.
Detailed information about tournaments, tournament tables, the schedule and results of matches are published in the section Tournaments.
