Zenit will host CSKA in the Game of the Week.
Time: 16:00 (Moscow time)
Venue: Russia, St. Petersburg, KSC Arena
Broadcast: TV Start, Match TV, Mir Basketbola, League website
Rivalry history
Zenit vs CSKA! The rivalry between the two top teams reached 40 games. Twice in the last two seasons the clubs have met in Playoffs: in 2022 Zenit defeated CSKA and became the United League champion, and a year later the Army team celebrated success in the 3rd place series, which earned them their League first bronze medals.
It is worth highlighting the SuperCup 2022 final: then CSKA had the lead for a long time, but allowed Zenit to return to the game. The St. Petersburg team took a timeout trailing by 2. After this, Thomas Wimbush scored a three-pointer over Livio Jean-Charles and only 2 seconds left. However, the Moscow team could not even make a shot and made a turnover.
CSKA leads in this rivalry: 26 wins in 40 games.
Summer signings
Perhaps, Zenit key win in the transfer campaign was retaining head coach Xavier Pascual and team leader Thomas Heurtel. There were a lot of rumors surrounding the Spanish specialist – he was being actively sent by the Euroleague clubs. But fortunately for the St. Petersburg team fans, Pascual decided to continue working with Zenit. And the French guard was the best in assists the previous season and has repeatedly demonstrated his status as an elite player.
Seven players left Zenit, including Dmitriy Kulagin, Trey Tompkins and Caleb Homesley. But all those losses are more than compensated for by new signings: Kyle Kuric returned to Zenit from Barcelona, Bojan Dubljevic came from Valencia, the team got Vince Hunter and Georgiy Zhbanov from UNICS and Timofey Gerasimov from Enisey.
CSKA losses are much more serious. In the offseason, the club lost two key players of the system – Alexey Shved and Nikola Milutinov. Dejan Davidovac, DeVontae Cacok and Dallas Moore also didn’t stay in Moscow. The Army team office made a lot of efforts to replace these players, and as a result, CSKA newcomers were center Tonye Jekiri, forward Amath M’Baye and guard Melo Trimble. The Moscow team also brought back Anton Kardanakhishvili from Samara, and Nikita Mikhailovskii from Avtodor.
Season start
Of course, replacing Shved – Milutinov duo is incredibly difficult, and only time will tell if Emil Rajkovic will be able to build a new system that will bring success. But the results of the first 2023/24 season week: CSKA defeated MBA (76:72) and Enisey (73:64) and share first place in the standings with the League newcomer Runa.
It’s worth noting that CSKA won both games in a defensive way: MBA barely got over 50 points (52) in the first 30 minutes, while Enisey scored only 37 points in three quarters – by that point the game result was already decided.
Zenit, on the other hand, had some problems. The home loss to Uralmash is the main sensation of the season, and the team managed to win only in the last minute against Samara. Pascual team is focus on defense, but the St. Petersburg team offense is still not doing well, as evidenced by 15 turnovers per game. In the 2022/23 season, Zenit had only 12.4 turnovers on average.
Duel
Before the start of the season, it looked like the duel between Heurtel and Ware would be the highlight of the game between Zenit and CSKA. Thomas was and still is one of the best playmakers in the League, and Kasper became the key Army team offensive player after Shved departure.
However, both guards are not performing as well as they should: 8.5 points by Heurtel and 9.0 from Ware per game. And while Zenit guard has a direct impact on the team offense with 15 assists in the game against Uralmash, Casper is still searching for himself at the start of the season: the number of turnovers exceeds the number of assists.
That is why the duel of bigmen should be taking into consideration: Bojan Dubljevic (Zenit) vs. Tonye Jekiri (CSKA). Both are quite effective and have a huge impact on the final result of their teams’ games. It is likely that the Game of the Week in St. Petersburg will depend on the winner of this battle.
Numbers
493 days have passed since Zenit last home win over CSKA in the United League. On June 2, 2022, Zenit beat CSKA in Game 6 of the Finals (82-63) and tied the series 3-3. Three days later, Zenit won in Moscow and became the League champion for the first time in history.
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