Zenit will host MBA in the regular season game.
Place: Russia, Saint Petersburg, Sibur Arena
Time: November 21, 20:00
Broadcasts: TV Start, League website
The history
Zenit and MBA has never met in official games. And this is a surprise: since the first year of its existence, the St. Petersburg team has played in the United League, while MBA made its debut only this October.
And only 1 game was played: in September, MBA came to St. Petersburg for the Kondrashin and Belov Cup, a pre-season tournament in honor of two legends of Soviet basketball. Then Zenit was stronger in the semifinal game – 67:59. At the same time, the Moscow team played the first half equally, but noticeably lost after the halftime.
Season start
The teams came the face-to-face meeting as neighborsin the standings, but with completely different feelings from the start of the season. If the 4th place and 7 wins in 10 games look like a more than acceptable result for MBA – the League newcomer, then the 3rd place and 2 losses in a 1.5 month for Zenit is almost a disaster.
In its first games, MBA showed that the team should not be underestimated, despite the absence of stars and foreign players in the squad. the Moscow team beat Loko, Astana and MINSK, showing the best start for the League newcomers. Then there was a slight decline and 3 losses in a row, but now Vasily Karasev team has improved and has the second longest current winning streak of 4 games (only CSKA has more – 11 wins in a row).
Zenit has the same number of wins – 7, while the St. Petersburg team played one less game. Xavi Pascual team lost only to closest competitors – UNICS and CSKA. However, the losses were quite painful, because both lossess happened at Sibur Arena, and secondly, despite the small score difference, the difference was 10 or more points.
In addition, Zenit was close to loss in other games: in Samara they managed to get ahead only in the last quarter, in Perm and even in the last minutes, and in Krasnodar the St. Petersburg team were close to losing a 24-point lead. Having been seriously updated in the summer, the reigning champion continues to build a new team.
Return
3 MBA players were significant players for Zenit in the past. Evgeny Voronov has been playing in St. Petersburg for three years (2017-20) and was even the captain of the team for some time. It was the 2017/18 season became one of the best in the guard career.
Anton Pushkov was in the St. Petersburg team for a long time until this summer – he moved to MBA. The center played for Zenit for 7 years, managed to become a League champion and at the moment is the club record holder for games played – 223 in all tournaments, including the United League.
Finally, Evgeny Valiev is another ex-Zenit captain. 5 seasons with the club and 99 games in the United League.
But of course, special attention will be to the arrival of Vasily Karasev. The Russian specialist headed Zenit from the very foundation until December 2018, won 122 games with this team. But he never took the team to the final series. After leaving Zenit, Karasev worked only in women basketball until he received an invitation from MBA this summer. The game on Monday will be the first official return of the coach to St. Petersburg in 4 years.
Numbers and leaders
MBA is the 3rd most scoring team of the season with 84.2 points per game. Zenit is the 4th with 80.2 points. The Moscow team has good shot percentages: 47.3 from the game, 39.5% from the three-point line. The St. Petersburg team has lower – 45.5% and 37.6%.
MBA is also in the top in steals: 9.7 per game and the 3rd place in the League.
However, this concludes the League newcomer advantages over the reigning champion. Zenit is better at rebounding (35.0 vs. 33.2), in assists (20.8 – 16.1) and got less turnovers (12.3 – 16.3).
Speaking about personalities, it is worth emphasizing that Zenit and MBA are two teams where one scores more than 13 points. This fact is even more surprising ifbecause MBA and Zenit are among the four best scoring teams of the League.
At the moment, MBA leader scoring leader is Timofey Yakushin with 12.3 points per game and Aleksandr Khomenko, who was recently in first place in the team, is only the third (11.3), having passed Andrey Lopatin (12.0). Zenit has a similar situation: 7 players score from 7 to 11 points and Trey Tompkins is the best scorer with 10.9 points per game.
Despite the team style of play, individual basketball players still stand out in personal statistics. Thus, Zenit’s point guard Thomas Ertel is the leader in assists (7,6), and Alexander Khomenko from the IBA is the best in the championship in interceptions (2,3).
Among all the players making more than 2 three-pointers per game, the Moscow team forward Andrey Lopatin demonstrates the 2nd three-point shooting percentage in the League (60.7%). And the St. Petersburg team forward Igor Volkhin is the 4th with 55.6%.
Fact
For the first time in the League history, father and son will meet in one game: Vasily Karasev, MBA head coach and Sergey Karasev, Zenit forward.
