Having completed the Cup of Kazakhstan, the basketball club «Astana» is going to the first game in the VTB United League season with CSKA Moscow. The match will take place on Sunday, February 13 in Moscow at the new arena of the army team Megasort, starting at 18:00 capital time.

CSKA is a Russian professional men's basketball club based in Moscow, founded in 1923. This season, in addition to participating in the VTB United League, it plays in the Euroleague.

Achievements:

• Champion of the USSR — 1945, 1960-1962, 1964-1966, 1969-1974, 1976-1984, 1988, 1990
• Champion of Russia — 1992-2000, 2003-2019, 2021
• USSR Cup winner — 1972, 1973
• Cup of Russia — 2005-2007, 2010
• European Cup Winner — 1960/1961, 1962/1963, 1968/1969, 1970/1971
• NEBL Champion — 1999/2000
• Euroleague champion — 2005/2006, 2007/2008, 2015/2016, 2018/2019
• VTB United League champion — 2009/2010, 2011/2012-2018/19, 2020/2021
• Silver medalist of the VTB United League — 2010/2011
• Winner of the VTB United League Super Cup 2021
• Basketball club CSKA 2021/2022

Roster:

The roster has not changed much compared to last season. This is not the first time the team retains its backbone, this time the team has 11 players left from last season — Dane Iffe Lundberg, Italian Daniel Hackett, German Johannes Vogtmann, representative of Georgia Tornike Shengelia, American Will Clyburn, as well as Russians Joel Bolomboy, Alexander Khomenko, Ivan Ukhov, Semyon Antonov, Andrey Lopatin, and Nikita Kurbanov. It is also worth noting the Serbian Nikola Milutinov, who last season was announced in February last season, this season he returned to the squad again. Thus, of the players from last season who finished last season, contracts with CSKA were not extended by American Darran Hilliard and Nigerian Michael Eric.

Of course, there are not so many newcomers on the team. From the beginning of the season, Lithuanian forward Marius Grigonis joined the team, who started in the Lithuanian Zalgiris system and then played in the Spanish «Peñas Huesca», «Manresa», and «Iberostar Tenerife», as well as the German «Alba». He spent the last three seasons in his native «Zalgiris». During his career, Marius won the FIBA Champions League, twice became the champion of Lithuania, and became the winner of the King Mindaugas Cup. Two Russian newcomers to the team need no introduction, especially since one of them played for CSKA — Alexei Shved, but in recent years he has been one of the main stars of «Khimki». Center Vladimir Ivleev has spent quite a lot of time in «Nizhny Novgorod» and «Lokomotiv-Kuban», and last season he spent in «PARMA». After the season began, American forward Kenneth Farid came to CSKA, who played for a long time in the NBA as part of the «Denver Nuggets», as well as the «Brooklyn Nets» and «Houston Rockets». In addition, Kenneth played for the Chinese «Zhejiang Lions» and the Puerto Rican «Leones de Ponce». Farid is the 2014 World Champion. But Kenneth Farid and CSKA parted ways and in December 2021 he returned to the United States. The most recent rookie of the army team was the American guard Allerik Freeman, the contract was signed with him only on the first of February and he only managed to spend three minutes in the thriller game against UNICS. Allerik managed to play in Hungary «Alba Fehervar», Turkish «Bursaspor», Chinese «Shenzhen Aviators» and «Qingdao Eagles», as well as the French «ASVEL».

Head coach: The CSKA coaching staff has not changed at all since the last meeting of the teams. The army team is also headed by the Greek specialist Dimitris Itoudis, and the same Greek Andreas Pistiolis, Russian Anton Yudin, and Spaniard Darryl Middleton help him. But since the beginning of February, due to the state of health of Itoudis, his assistant Andreas Pistiolis has been leading the team in the competitions. But already in the away match against «Maccabi» in the Euroleague, Dimitris was with the team, so he will most likely lead his team in the match against «Astana».

Rival leaders: Nikola Milutinov is CSKA's most effective player in the VTB United League, but Iffe Lundberg's most effective player in the army team is close to him in efficiency. Excellent results are shown by Tornike Shengelia and Johannes Vogtmann, though both last played on the court in January. Joel Bolomboy and Daniel Hackett have good numbers in statistics. Not far behind them are Nikita Kurbanov, Marius Grigonis, Alexey Shved and Ivan Ukhov. Will Clyburn also looks very good, but he has not been seen on the court in the VTB League matches since December. So the roster of the army, as always, is strong.

Standings: «Astana» is in tenth place with two wins in nine games, while CSKA is currently in an unusual fourth position with nine wins and four losses. This season, the Muscovites unexpectedly lost to Kalev, although they have already managed to take major revenge from the Estonians. We lost to «Zenit» St. Petersburg and have already lost twice to the current leader in the standings — Kazan UNICS, while in both games there was an intense competition, and in the last game, which took place quite recently, everything was decided only in the third overtime. Do not forget that CSKA is very actively playing on two fronts — the VTB League and the Euroleague, and the match with «Astana» will be their fifth in a little less than two weeks since the beginning of February.

History of games: For «Astana» and CSKA this will be the 23rd face-to-face meeting in history. Our team was very close to defeating the army team, but this has never happened so far. So in the face-to-face confrontation with CSKA, we still have non so far. 

Interesting Facts:

• CSKA is still the only team in the VTB United League that has never lost to «Astana».

The match will take place on Sunday, February 13 in Moscow at the arena of the Megasport Sports Palace, starting at 18:00 capital time. Online broadcast of the match will be available on the main page of our website.

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

Basketball club «Astana» competed well against CSKA in Moscow, but they could not beat their opponents. Darko Russo entrusted the start of the match to imports Anthony Hickey, Skylar Spencer, Antonio Campbell, Mark Tikhonenko, and Kazakhstani Maxim Marchuk.

The jumping  ball remained with the players of the Kazakh team and Anthony Hickey opened the scoring in the first attack and put «Astana» ahead. In the next four minutes on offense, the Kazakh team did not achieve success, and the hosts ran ahead by seven points. In the middle of the period, Maksim Marchuk was accurate from the free-throw line, and Skylar Spencer achieved success from under the basket, but this did not save our team from a double-digit lag and Darko Russo had to take an early time-out. After it, our rivals slowed down their pace in the implementation, and in the last three minutes of the first quarter, points were updated exclusively by «Astana». Antonio Campbell scored the first three-pointer for our team, Anthony Hickey earned a couple more points, and Maxim Marchuk was also accurate from the paint. We could not catch up with our rivals, but we noticeably reduced the gap until the end of the period - 18:14. At the start of the second quarter, the opponents converted a three-pointer, but then Anthony Hickey scored twice in a row, and the difference between the teams was reduced to one exact three-pointer. CSKA again began to act more successfully in attack and defense, and their lead increased. Another minute break from our coaching staff helped us – the army team again achieved a double-digit advantage. In the middle of the period, Oleg Balashov was twice accurate from a distance, and after three points from Mark Tikhonenko, «Astana» was only five points behind. In the last three minutes of the first half, the Muscovites were more productive. Another three-pointer from Mark Tikhonenko did not save our team from another two-digit gap — 44:30. According to the statistics, it was clear that our rivals had overpassed «Astana» in scoring. In terms of the percentage of shots from an average distance, the hosts significantly outplayed our team. Also, Astana had four more losses and ten fewer rebounds, which resulted in a big difference in second-chance points, and points after losses were not not in our favor either.



After switching sides, the teams exchanged effective attacks — an alley-up from Antonio Campbell and two points in the drive from Anthony Hickey. The difference remained in the region of fifteen points, but our long-range artillery paid off — Antonio Campbell and Anthony Hickey each sent the ball to the target from a long distance. And by the middle of the period, the backlog was reduced to five points. The hosts were able to stop our team from further breakthrough, and in the next couple of minutes, the difference was kept in the region of five to seven points. During this time, Skylar Spencer scored a couple more points, and Anthony Hickey converted one point. But at the end of the third period, CSKA earned six unanswered points and won thirteen points before the final quarter — 62:49. In the fourth quarter, things were not in our favor — CSKA approached the advantage of twenty points. Three-pointers from Oleg Balashov and Anthony Hickey returned the difference to eleven points, but in the middle of the period, the hosts still achieved twenty points of advantage. Anthony Hickey scored a couple more times, but three minutes before the end of the game everything was clear, and CSKA was in the lead by twenty-six points. At the end of the game, the Moscow team loosened its grip. Maxim Marchuk, Oleg Balashov also scored points in favor of our team, and Anthony Hickey scored twice. Our backlog was reduced, but in the end, “Astana” lost with a score of — 84:65.
 
Most scoring:

• CSKA — The base of the team played well for the army team and five players scored more than ten points. Marius Grigonis became the most productive, and Nikola Milutinov the most effective among the Muscovites.
• «Astana» — Anthony Hickey played the entire match today without substitutions, earning 26 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists, and 2 steals. Antonio Campbell scored 11 points and 6 rebounds. Oleg Balashov earned 11 points and 2 assists. And Maxim Marchuk chalked up 7 points and 4 rebounds.

CSKA head coach Dimitris Itoudis:
«Congratulations to the team. We played seriously. Astana's main strength is its point guard Hickey, who has shown another great game — we have not found a suitable response against his actions. But it allowed us to practice defense, rotation, and playing against isolations. We do not have enough players because of injuries, because of their rehabilitation. It helps our chemistry a bit and we are here to work and face reality.»

«Astana» head coach Darko Russo:
«Today we played against one of the best teams in Europe. The match was important for us because we had to test ourselves without our best player, to understand how we will play in the future. After all, there will be no more changes in the roster until the end of the season. CSKA never underestimated the opponent, they acted tough against us and we couldn't stop this offense. They constantly played contact and finished off by a victory. We lost «-19», but on the whole, we played solidly. However, I cannot be dissatisfied. We have a difficult schedule ahead of matches against «Loko» and UNICS. It will be difficult, but we are not afraid, I am teaching the team to fight with every opponent.»

Consequences: “Astana” remained on the tenth line, but “Tsmoki-Minsk” caught up with us in the main indicators and conceded only a line to us in additional indicators.

Next match: Our guys will play two home matches this week. On Tuesday, February 15, Krasnodar «Lokomotiv Kuban '' will be visiting the capital, starting at 19:00 capital time, tickets are on sale on the Ticketon.kz website. Then on Thursday, February 17, Kazan UNICS will pay a return visit to the yellow-turquoise team, starting at 19:30 capital time, tickets are also on sale on the Ticketon.kz website.

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