The best were diluted with foreign ones – Newspaper Kommersant No. 175 (7376) of 09/22/2022

On Thursday, the VTB United League Super Cup starts in Moscow, which is the de facto start of the basketball season in Russia. The current tournament is noticeably different from the last one a year ago. And the status – now the Super Cup is included in the official calendar of the league, and the composition of the participants – in addition to the four strongest clubs in the league last season: Zenit, CSKA, UNICS and Lokomotiv-Kuban – foreign teams will also play in the tournament. This is Partizan, which needs no introduction, and another Belgrade club, Mega.

There are still almost two weeks before the start of the VTB United League regular season (the championship will start on October 2), but in fact the season, if we talk about its top participants, starts on Thursday at the Moscow VTB Arena, where the Super Bowl will be held from September 22 to 25 VTB United League.

For the first time, the tournament was held a year ago, before the start of the 2021/22 championship, and was held in the format of a pre-season competition that was not included in the official league schedule (four strongest teams of the 2020/21 season took part in it). But even then the leadership of the VTB United League announced its intention to give the Super Cup an official status and even expand it. Which, in fact, happened in the off-season, when it was decided that not four, but six teams would play in the Super Bowl. At the first stage, they are divided into two groups, where they will play two matches. The winners of the groups in the final will compete for the main prize – the Gomelsky Cup. The teams that take second place will compete for bronze, the third – for fifth place.

The intrigue was in the composition of the participants, more precisely, in who will be added to the top four of last season (Zenith, CSKA, UNICS and Lokomotiv-Kuban). As Ilona Korstin, general director of the VTB United League, noted, negotiations were held, including with Chinese and Turkish clubs. However, it was not possible to agree with them due to the discrepancy between the schedules of the teams. But it was possible to find a common language with the Serbian teams. “The first dialogue regarding the participation of Serbian clubs in the Super Bowl took place back in May at the Euroleague Final Four in Belgrade,” VTB United League President Sergey Kushchenko told TASS. of the strongest in Europe, as well as the fact that many eminent Serbian players and coaches played in the VTB United League, all this made it possible to agree on the participation of Partizan and Mega in the Super Cup.

Partizan, which needs no introduction, and another Belgrade club, Mega, will play in the Super Cup. Partizan has been assigned to Group A, where it will play against reigning league champions Zenit and Lokomotiv-Kuban, while Mega will face CSKA and UNICS in Group B.

However, the main interest will be precisely the clashes of Russian clubs in close to combat mode. It is worth recalling that even in the course of last season, Russian clubs faced a mass exodus of foreigners (not only players, but also coaches) and expulsion from European competitions. The question arose, which of the top teams will be able to adapt better and faster to new conditions? The pre-season shows that it is most likely Zenit and UNICS.

Both St. Petersburg and Kazan lost many players at the end of last season, but, importantly, they managed to keep the head coaches (unlike CSKA, in which the reins of the team passed from Dimitris Itoudis to Emil Raikovich) – Javi Pascual and Velimir Perasovich, as well as recruit fully combat compositions. For example, Zenit was strengthened by Trey Tompkins, who spent the last seven years at Real Madrid, Richard Solomon, who was the leader of the Turkish Bahcesehir, Caleb Homesley. The latter, it seems, may well be the opening of the season. Homesley’s professional career only began in 2021, when he joined Hamburger SV in the Bundesliga, but already last Sunday, the 25-year-old American showed he was capable of a lot. He became the MVP of the Kondrashin and Belov Cup final, in the final of which Zenit defeated CSKA – 79:58. Homesley scored 26 points for himself.

As for UNICS, among the club’s newcomers are: center Louis Labery, who has two dozen caps for the French national team, defender Anthony Brown with NBA experience, reliable power forward Vince Hunter, former Dallas point guard Daryl Macon, well known to Russian fans for performances for Zenit Jalen Reynolds. Plus Stanislav Ilnitsky and Mikhail Kulagin, who need no introduction. The line-up by name was chosen enough even to play in the Euroleague. Unfortunately, Russian teams are not allowed to compete in European competitions.

It will be possible to judge how justified the hopes of Kazan fans are already on September 22, when the opening match of the Super Cup will take place, in which UNICS will meet with CSKA, which, after years of hegemony, now seems like a mystery team. The army team, who lost their championship title at the end of last season, managed to keep Nikola Milutinov (this is a key player in the CSKA scheme) and sign a couple of more or less promising newcomers – Dejan Davidovac and Livio Jean-Charles. What will come of this, time will tell.

Alexander Petrov