Moscow will host the regular season game on Monday.
MBA (Moscow, Russia) vs Runa (Moscow, Russia)
Time: 19:30 (Moscow time)
Place: Russia, Moscow, Basket Hall Moscow.
Broadcast: Match! Igra, Start Triumph, League website.
MBA: Vasily Karasev team won’t be favourites. At the moment, only Runa has four wins in five games, while the opponents are the opposite. MBA played only once at home and their rivals were three of the four semi-finalists from last season. But MBA will have an extra-long home series: the Moscow team will play seven games over the next month, up to and including November 21, six of which will be played in Basket Hall Moscow. The Moscow team will probably try to make up for lost opportunities during this time. Evgeniy Minchenko has already confidently stepped into the leader, disproving analysts predictions – he was the best MBA player with 22 points against Zenit.
Runa: Tne newcomers repeat last year’s path of MBA and seriously intend to become the main discovery of the season. Excellent roster and a convenient schedule at the start led the Vikings to be among the three strongest teams. In recent games, however, Runa has been without a number of key players – Cameron Young and Juwan Morgan – and the game against PARMA was missed by the team’s second-leading scorer Nikola Ivanovic, which didn’t stop Erturul Erdogan team from giving their coach a win on his 55th birthday. At the moment, Runa looks clearly preferable, but it’s premature to give the newcomers the win in advance – MBA has its own jokers. In particular, the Vikings’ game model of pressuring through the paint may not stand up to Evgeniy Minchenko, who currently leads the League in blocks – 2.4 blocks per game.
