Basketball club «Astana» will play on the road with the team «Tsmoki-Minsk». The Belarusian team is the last of the rivals in the VTB United League, with whom our team has not yet met this season. The game will take place on Sunday 21 March, starting at 18:00 Nur-Sultan time.
«Tsmoki-Minsk» - is a Belarusian professional men's basketball club from the city of Minsk, founded in 2006. This season, in addition to playing in the VTB United League and the Belarusian Championship, he participates in the European Cup.
Achievements:
- Champion of Belarus 2009-2020
- Belarus Cup Winner 2010-2020
Roster:
Five players from the last season did not retain their Belarusian basketball registration. The main losses were American Dominès Barnett and Serbian veteran Branko Mirkovic. In addition, the Frenchman Alexandre Gavrilovic moved to «Nizhny Novgorod», and Vitaly and Maxim Lyutych also left the team. The place in the “Dragons” was kept by the Belarusian players Alexander Pustogvar, Vladimir Vermeenko, Alexey Trostinetskiy, Evgeniy Belyankov, Andrey Stabrovsky, Andrey Rogozenko, Vadim Studeba, and Daniil Borisevich. In addition, Belarusian Maxim Salash and American Robert Lowry remained in the team in the offseason, but Maxim left the team in December, and Robert left the Dragons at the end of February this year.
Three import players started with the Belarusian team this season, not counting Lowry. Latvian center Klavs Cavars has previously played in the VTB United League. He started in Riga «VEF» and then spent a couple of seasons in the LMT Basketball Academy team. After that, there were the Latvian «Leipajas», the Turkish «ITU», again VEF, and «Ventspils» from Latvia. Another Latvian player guards Toms Leimanis has spent 6 seasons at the start of his career in the Latvian teams “Ventspils” and “Leipajas”, and then played in the Estonian “Valga-Valka”, the Greek “Koroivos” and the Spanish “Valladolid”. American guard Chris Klayborn before the Belarusian team in the professional arena played only in the Polish “Astoria Bygdoszcz”. Experienced center Artem Parakhovsky joined the team from the Belarusian players, who only played until January in the Dragon team, and then moved to BC «Andorra». Also, the team included a young forward Aleksey Porolev, who also left the squad in January. Belarusian forward Benjamin-Pavel Dudu started in the Russian “Lobnya”, and then spent several seasons in “Khimki”, after that there were Moscow “Dynamo”, Yaroslavl “Burevestnik” and “Dynamo-MSTU”. He spent the last seasons in the Belarusian “Borisfen”. In addition, the team included young guard Maxim Korattsov and Vladislav Bliznyuk, as well as forward Denis Vikentiev. Also at the beginning of this calendar year, the team added the American forward Derek Cook. Derek has experience in teams such as Greece's «Rethymno Cretan Kings», Australia's «Perth Wildcats» and Italy's «Trieste», in addition, he participated in the NBA Development League in the teams «Northern Arizona Suns» and «Raptors 905», as well as in the Canadian League in the «Hamilton Hanay Badgers» team.
Head coach:
The coaching staff has not changed at all since last season. The Belarusian team is led by a local specialist Rostislav Vergun, and is assisted by Latvian Edmunds Valeiko, Pole Wojciech Walich, and Belarusian Alexei Sukhovetsky.
Rival leaders:
Out of the currently playing players, the leader of the team is American Chris Clayburn, in addition, Derek Cook became a good member of the team. Also, the team now includes Toms Leimanis, Vladimir Veremeenko, Evgeny Belyankov, Alexey Trostinetskiy, and Benjamin-Pavel Dudu. In addition, the coaching staff often engages Andrey Rogozenko, Denis Vikentiev, and Alexander Pustogvar.
Tournament position:
“Tsmoki Minsk” in seventeen games were able to win only twice and occupy the last line in the standings. “Astana” after seventeen games is not much ahead of rivals. The Kazakhstani team is on the 11th line with 4 wins in 17 games.
Game history:
In the entire history, the teams have met 14 times, and the score is still 7: 7. Thus, our team has an excellent chance not only to lead a personal confrontation with Tsmoki, but also to interrupt the drawn-out losing streak.
Interesting Facts:
- Robert Lauri — ex-Astana player, was one of the leaders of the Belarusian team, but a month ago he left the Tsmoki roster.
The match will take place on Sunday, March 21 in Minsk at the arena of the Falcon Club sports and entertainment complex, starting at 18:00 Nur-Sultan time. The 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.
