Having successfully started in the season of the National League and inspired with two home victories over Caspiy, the players of the Astana basketball club go to the city on the Neva, to the VTB United League away match against the St. Petersburg Zenit. The match will take place on Sunday, November 1, starting at 20.00, Astana time.

«Zenit» — is a Russian professional men's basketball club from the city of St. Petersburg, founded in 2014. In addition to participating in the VTB United League, they play in the Euroleague.
 
Achievements:

• Bronze medalist of VTB United League — 2015/2016, 2016/2017, 2017/2018
• Bronze medalist of the Championship of Russia — 2016-2018
• Finalist of the Russian Cup — 2015/2016

 
Team roster:

The Petersburg squad has changed a lot in the offseason. Since last season, only 7 people have remained in the team from St. Petersburg.  Mexican Gustavo Iona, the Frenchman Andrew Albisi and the Americans Colton Iverson, Alex Renfro and Tim Abromaitis have left the team. As for the Russian players, the most experienced Anton Ponkrashov and Evgeny Voronov also have left the team. Of the seven players who have extended their contracts with Zenit, there are two Americans  Austin Hollins and Will Thomas, a Pole Mateusz Ponitka, as well as four Russian players — Dmitry Khvostov, Anton Pushkov, Vladislav Trushkin and Andrey Zubkov.

Three American players have joined the ranks of St. Petersburg players this season.  K. C. Rivers guard started his career with the Italian teams Latina, Benetton and Virtus, and also played for the French Rohan. K. C. is no stranger to the VTB United League and in the 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 seasons, he played in the Russian teams Lokomotiv-Kuban and Khimki. In the NBA Development League he played in the Reno Bighorns, and also was in the roster of such European giants as the Spanish Real Madrid, German Bayern Munich, Greek Panathinaikos and Serbian Crvena Zvezda, in addition, he played for the Italian Reggiana and the Spanish Real Betis.  He spent the last season in the Lithuanian Zalgiris. Rivers has a lot of titles to his credit: Euroleague champion, twice champion of Spain and Greece, champion of the Adriatic League, Serbia and Lithuania. In addition, he has twice won the Spanish Cup, the Spanish Super Cup, the Greek Cup and the King Mindaugas Cup. 



The guard Billy Baron has experience of playing for Lithuanian Lietuvos Rytas, Belgian Charleroi, Spanish Murcia, Turkish Eskisehir and Serbian Crvena Zvezda. Billy is the champion of Serbia and the Adriatic League, and the winner of the Super Cup of the Adriatic League. In addition, Baron became the winner of the American Championship with the US team. Forward Alex Poythress has appeared in the NBA rosters such as the Philadelphia SeventiSixers, Indiana Pacers and Atlanta Hawks. He also played in the NBA Development League for Fort Wayne Mad Ants and Erie Bayhawks. After the USA, Poythress played for the Chinese team Jilin Northeast Tigers and the Turkish team Galatasaray. Canadian guard Kevin Pangos played for the Spanish Gran Canaria and the Lithuanian Zalgiris and spent the last two seasons in the Spanish Barcelona. Lithuanian forward Arturas Gudaitis has spent most of his career in Lithuania in the teams Gargzdai-Bremen, Zalgiris and Lietuvos Rytas, and spent the last three seasons in the Italian team Olympia Milan. Arturas is twice champion of Lithuania and champion of Italy, as well as the winner of the Lithuanian Cup, King Mindaugas Cup and two Italian Cups. The famous Russian name in Zenit is a guard Vitaly Fridzon. Vitaly has played in Khimki, CSKA and Lokomotiv-Kuban for more than 15 years, and more than once became the Champion of Russia and the VTB United League, Euroleague Champion and bronze medalist of the World Championship and Olympic Games. Another experienced Russian newcomer to Zenit is the guard Denis Zakharov. Denis has participated in the teams Sparta and K, Dynamo Moscow, Nizhniy Novgorod, Lokomotiv Kuban, and he spent the previous seasons in Yenisey. Also, two young players joined the team, forward Igor Volkhin, who came from Khimki and forward Maxim Karvanen, from the Zenit system.
 
Head coach:

The coaching staff of the team from St. Petersburg has not changed at all since last season. All the same, the team is led by the Spanish specialist Xavi Pascual, and the Spaniard Iñigo Zorzano, the Greek Adamantios Panagiotopoulos and the Russian specialist Sergey Voznyuk helps him.


 
Rival leaders:

For the four matches that the team played in the VTB United League, Americans Alex Poythress and Billy Baron became the leaders of the team. In addition, Austin Hollins, Kevin Pangos and Mateusz Ponitka performed well. K.C. Rivers, Will Thomas and Arturas Gudaitis are also showing not bad results. As of the Russian players, Andrei Zubkov is excellent, and Vitaly Fridzon and Denis Zakharov are constantly playing from the start of the match.
 
Tournament position:

Zenit has won all 4 games since the start of the season and topped the standings.  However, it should be noted that Zenit so far played mainly with teams from the bottom of the standings, Kalev, Zelena Gora and Tsmoki-Minsk, and also defeated Khimki, which this season is not yet at its peak forms. Astana also played 4 matches but can celebrate of only one victory, and currently occupies the tenth place in the rating of teams.
 
Game history:

Astana and Zenit have met 11 times, and the St. Petersburg team is ahead of our guys, having won seven games against four. 
 
Interesting Facts:

• Last season the teams had only one game, which took place in Nur-Sultan, then Astana was able to snatch victory from the rivals.
• In the two previous face-to-face confrontations, Astana and Zenith were able to sort things out only in overtime.

The match will take place on Sunday, November 1 in St. Petersburg at the Sibur Arena site, starting at 20:00 Astana time. Online broadcast of the match will be available on our website in the Match Center section, as well as live on the QazSport TV channel.
 
Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule, and match results are published in the Tournaments section.

Astana came to St. Petersburg with just one victory after four matches, while Zenit won all of their previous four games. Thus, on the home site, the St. Petersburg team acted as the favourite. It is also worth noting that Devin Marble made his debut for our team in this VTB United League match.

The ball after the toss was won by the hosts, and in the very first attempt, the Petersburgers realized their throw and opened the score in the game. Michael Thompson, after a minute and a half of playing time, opened the score for the Kazakh team, and less than a minute later, Adonis Thomas equalized the score with an accurate three-pointer. However, Zenit was not going to stop and moved forward. The hosts recorded the next 4 minutes as an asset, successfully using all their chances and their advantage became double-digit. Our guys made quite a lot of losses at the end of attacks and as a result, our team's score increased very slowly. Zenit continued their successful game and by the end of the quarter, the St. Petersburg team reached + 15 in their lead. The final points in the first quarter were scored by Michael Thompson, who realized his attempt in the passage — 27:14. At the start of the second quarter, Devin Marble earned his first points in the VTB United League, scoring a three-pointer and scoring and one. After an accurate free throw from Devin, the gap of Astana was reduced to 9 points. Unfortunately, Astana was unable to use the momentum and by the middle of the quarter, the difference between Zenit was again equal to 15 points. But it should be noted that the hosts in the second quarter were not as effective as in the first one. Until the end of the first half of the game, precise throws by Michael Thompson, Adonis Thomas and Devin Marble reduced the gap to 11 points. Astana won the second quarter although with an advantage of only two points, thereby reducing the gap after the first ten minutes to eleven points — 38:27.



The situation was not catastrophic for Astana as an 11 point gap, in fact, this is not decisive yet. But the third quarter was extremely unsuccessful for the Kazakh team. The first half of the third quarter was ineffective for the team from St. Petersburg, in five minutes they were able to score only 6 points. And for Astana, these five minutes became simply terrible in terms of efficiency. Our players were unable to score a single point in five minutes, and the gap almost reached 20 points. Michael Thompson in the sixth minute finally opened the scoring for our team in this quarter. In the second half of the third quarter, Zenit more and more often scored accurately, but Astana could not boast of this. The gap between the teams grew and by the end of the quarter came close to 30 points. The huge gap of 28 points before the final quarter left little chances for Emil Rajkovic's team in this game. At the start of the fourth quarter, “Astana” was unable to do anything that could turn the tide of the game, and Zenit confidently approached the victory. Five minutes before the end, the gap for St.Petersburg reached 30 points. In this game, everything was already clear as day. The hosts were confidently playing their game without leaving the slightest chance for Astana. The performance of the Kazakh team was not at all up to par in this match, and our players reached the 50-point mark only a minute before the end. Thus, Zenith won a very confident victory with a score of 85:52.

If you look at the final data, then the main problem in this match was the implementation of shots: only 35% from an average distance and 27% from a long distance, by the way, for our opponents the same indicators stood at 52% of two-points and 45% for three-pointers. This is perhaps the main reason for our defeat today. In addition, Astana lost 27 against 42 rebounds. 
 
Most productive:

• «Zenit» - Russians Anton Pushkov (13 points, 6 rebounds) and Andrey Zubkov (10 points and 9 rebounds) played excellently in the St. Petersburg team. Canadian Kevin Pangos also played very confidently with 14 points and 9 assists.
• «Astana» — many of our players simply did not play well today. Michael Thompson was perhaps the brightest in our squad today and became the most productive in both teams — 16 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists. Devin Marble showed good numbers in the opening — 13 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals. On account of Adonis Thomas 10 points and 4 rebounds.

Head coach of «Zenit» - Xavi Pascual:
 - Thanks to the fans for being with us. We're happy to be back in the game after 24 days. It's a great feeling, everyone was looking forward to playing again at Sibur Arena with our fans. In general, the game went well, throughout the match we played defence very well. The main thing is that we managed to follow our tactics for the game. We made some mistakes in the attack. However, the players worked with full dedication and made every effort, which is not easy after such a long break.
 
Head coach of «Astana» — Emil Rajkovic:
- Congratulations to Zenit on the victory. It didn’t feel at all that our opponent hadn’t played for more than three weeks. The players were fresh, they were hungry, they gave it 100%. As for us, we played just a terrible game. We didn’t do anything that we have planned, we didn’t follow the tactics for the match. We still have a lot to improve, including physicality.
 
Consequences: Zenit strengthens its position in the first line of the standings with five wins in five matches, while Astana continues to occupy the tenth position of the rating with one victory.
 
Next match: On November 5, the capital's basketball players will play their next away match in the VTB United League, without returning home they will go to Tallinn where they will play with the local Kalev. 

Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule, and match results are published in the Tournaments section.