Zenit won the VTB United League Super Cup for the second time in a row
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Zenit won the VTB United League Super Cup for the second time in a row. In the final, Javi Pascual’s team beat Lokomotiv-Kuban in an extremely nervous and therefore beautiful confrontation. In the end, the Krasnodar team almost managed to send the match into overtime, but the St. Petersburg team turned out to be a little luckier, winning with a score of 85:83.
The VTB United League Super Cup was held for the third time, and it must be admitted that the tournament has come a long way in a very short period of time. It all started in 2021 as just a warm-up for the four strongest teams of the previous season before the start of the new championship. In 2022, foreign participants – the Serbian Partizan and Mega – joined the top clubs from the VTB United League. In 2023, the Super Bowl has grown to eight participants. Six domestic and two very well-known Turkish clubs – Fenerbahce, which is a permanent participant in the Euroleague, and Besiktas.
Often the expansion of tournaments is to their detriment. Simply because of the declining average level of participants. But this is not the case. Frankly, there were practically no easy matches here, but there were plenty of games that kept you in suspense until the very end. You can remember, for example, how CSKA and Lokomotiv-Kuban put on a show on the first day, the outcome of which was decided only in overtime (in favor of the Krasnodar team). Or how the current league champion UNICS dropped out of the race for awards already in the first match, losing to Nizhny Novgorod. Or how Zenit butted heads with Besiktas, and the same Lokomotiv-Kuban, having given a disastrous start in the confrontation with Fenerbahce, then simply defeated the Istanbul team.
Against this background, it would be very disappointing if the final, which Lokomotiv-Kuban and Zenit made it to, let’s say, did not work out. But, I must admit, from the very first minutes after the start of the game it became clear that the 4.7 thousand spectators gathered at the VTB Arena (these are official league data at the start of the game – in reality, later almost the same number of people came to the stands) would not be disappointed . Even when Zenit immediately took the lead (as if according to plan, the St. Petersburg team included Trent Fraser, Boyan Dubljevich, Thomas Ertel one after another) giving themselves a 14-point head start, it was felt that this was all a purely temporary phenomenon and Lokomotiv-Kuban will catch up. It was not for nothing that Alexander Sekulic’s team reached the play-off final last season, showing more than once or twice that they can catch up and overtake. And the Krasnodar team did this in the match against Zenit. But Javi Pascul’s team showed the best defense in this tournament. Nevertheless, Alexander Shcherbenev, Okaro White, Vladislav Yemchenko, and Anton Kvitkovskikh struggled, but persistently searched and found ways to the opponent’s ring. As a result, the game looked like some kind of race in which Zenit ran away from Lokomotiv, but could not really escape. Even though the team is equipped, at least on paper, probably the best in the league. And in the last minute, when the Zenit players seemed to be confused in their own tactical idea – Thomas Ertel passed the ball so recklessly across half the court that the ball went to the opponent – Lokomotiv-Kuban still caught up with the opponent. A quick attack after the interception ended with a three-pointer by White and the score became 83:83 10 seconds before the siren.
Zenit responded competently – Kuric, who later received the tournament MVP award, found a chance to shoot and managed to expose himself to a foul. He missed the field goal, but made both free throws. The Krasnodar team had only a few seconds left to respond; Shcherbenev rushed under the hoop and threw, but then Adrien Moerman hit the ball like a fly swatter. And it was a champion block shot. Zenit won with a score of 85:83 and kept the Super Cup for another year.
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