MBA demonstrated its degree – Sport – Kommersant

A week has passed since the start of the VTB United League regular championship. Its most notable defendant was not one of the giants, but the debutant of the league, the Moscow MBA. The team of Vasily Karasev won the second victory on Sunday, defeating Astana on the road. And now the MBA is in second place in the championship, second only to CSKA in terms of additional indicators. Lokomotiv-Kuban, who coped with Samara, opened the scoring with victories after an unsuccessful start.

In the summer, when the VTB United League announced that it was accepting Samara and MBA instead of Kalev and Zielona Gura, who left the tournament for political reasons, there were enough fears that the newcomers to the league would only act as suppliers of points for more eminent rivals. But as the first week showed after the start of the championshipThese fears were exaggerated. The same IBA, at least at this stage, seems to be quite a strong project. Note that there are no legionnaires in the team at all. During the off-season, there was some talk that the MBA intends to abandon the concept of hiring exclusively Russian players, but even so, everything remains the same for now. And the system does work.

Recall that it was the MBA who became the author of the main sensation of the first round of the regular season, defeating one of the participants in the top 4 Russian basketball Lokomotiv Kuban away. And as shown by the match against Astana on Sunday, Krasnodar’s success was not accidental. The hosts, we note, started the tournament unsuccessfully, losing to Avtodor on the road. But it seemed more than likely that in front of their audience, and even with the debutant of the league, they would cope. In fact, the MBA, which did not begin to change its style of play from defense and rely on attacks from a distance (the hand of Vasily Karasev, who returned to the VTB United League after a long break, can be seen very clearly here), spent one quarter to get to the bottom of the enemy, and the three remaining to defeat him. Suffice it to say that the MBA won the second and third ten-minute periods by 11 points each. And the final quarter – already with a margin of 13 points. Given the above, the victory of the MBA with a score of 103:69 looks quite logical. Moreover, it is difficult to single out someone personally in the team. Yes, there is the most productive player of the match – Daniil Kasatkin (18 points). But more importantly, in addition to Kasatkin, five basketball players in the Moscow team overcame the barrier of 10 points scored.

Playing in such a collectivist mode, it is quite possible to count on clinging matches in confrontations with better equipped teams. So far, the MBA is in second place, second only to CSKA in terms of additional indicators.

The aforementioned Lokomotiv-Kuban did not please its fans in the first round, but rehabilitated in the second. Krasnodar hosted another debutant of the league Samara on Saturday and won with a score of 79:70. At the same time, the hosts had to try to break the resistance of the guests. Jaylen Burford was especially hard-working with 29 points (of which 15 were from long-range shots). It would have been difficult without him, but the head coach of Lokomotiv-Kuban Alexander Sekulich noted after the match that the public saw exactly how his team should look. “Mistakes are normal for a young team. It is important to be able to respond correctly to these errors, quickly understand how to fix them. I think we did it well today,” said the Slovenian specialist, who added that Krasnodar will try to maintain the same attitude until Thursday, when they will have the most difficult test of the season so far: CSKA will come to Krasnodar.

As for the other top clubs in the league, its current champion Zenit, who started their performance with a defeat from UNICS, won their first victory away from Parma (the guests won with a score of 65:60) in front of 6253 spectators gathered in the stands of the palace sports “Hammer”. It was a new league attendance record. UNICS itself is still undefeated. On Sunday, Kazan were stronger than Yenisei – 104:59.

Arnold Kabanov