On Wednesday, Saturday and Monday 7 regular season games to be held.
Wednesday, September 23
Astana (Kazakhstan) vs CSKA (Russia)
Time: 19:30 (16:30 MSK)
Place: Kazakhstan, Nur-Sultan, Saryarka Velodrome
Broadcast: TV Start
Astana: Kazakhstan team have changed a lot during offseason. One of the last season best bigs Dusan Ristic moved to Italy, and one more club leader Malcolm Hill is trying to succeed in Hapoel. There are two newcomers that are supposed to replace them – small guard Michael Thompson (42,4 3-point % in French championship last season) and power forward Adonis Thomas. One more rookie to be known is center Martins Meiers that has spent over 100 games in the United League.
CSKA: This team have changed even more last months: long time leaders Andrey Vorontsevich and Kyle Hines left the club. However, it’s hard to say that the team became weaker: European basketball superstar Tornike Shengelia joined CSKA, he led Basconia last year to the first Spain champions title in 10 years. And the transfer of Kosta Koufos that hasn’t met the expectations must be replaced by the prime Serbian center Nikola Milutinov from Olympiacos. In the CSKA season opener the newcomers will try to prolong team’s winning streak against Astana – now it is 20 games in a row.
Nizhny Novgorod (Russia) vs Khimki (Russia)
Time: 19:00 (19:00 MSK)
Place: Russia, Nizhny Novgorod, CEC Nagorny
Broadcast: Match! Strana
Nizhny Novgorod: NN haven’t beat Khimki for almost 2 years, since December 2018. However, Nizhny have proved multiple times that they aren’t a cakewalk, for instance, Khimki took their last W in a tight clutch, the intrigue remained till the final seconds. During the offseason Zoran Lukic team fully replaced foreign players, the most promissing force is Kasey Shepherd, and another rookie Luke Petrasek was injured before playing a single official game for NN, thus he can’t help the team in first 3 months of the regular season.
Khimki: Moscow team as usual enter the season as contender, they saved the majority of key players and powered up by the foreigner Jordan Mickey, Greg Monroe and Errick McCollum, and also Zenit’s captain Evgeny Voronov. But Voronov couldn’t help his new team beat the old one – at the start of the season Khimki lost to Zenit. However, the fact that Alexey Shved hasn’t played against Petersburg should be taken into account. Rimas Kurtinaitis crew will try to redeem themselves in game vs Nizhny.
Zenit (Russia) vs Zielona Gora (Poland)
Time: 20:00 (20:00 MSK)
Place: Russia, Saint Petersburg, Sibur Arena
Broadcast: TV Start
Zenit: This offseason Zenit renewed thoroughly – 8 last year roster players left. Refusing the superstar chase Zenit powered up the bench and started with strong win over Khimki: during the game Zenit made a 16:0 run that was initiated by Billy Baron and Alex Poythress.
Zielona Gora: The Poles weren’t this offseason newsmakers, only adjusted the roster a little bit. But can Geoffrey Grosselle and Gabriel Lundberg replace last season leaders Thomasson, Hakanson, Gordon and Radic? It’s an open question now. Although Zielona Gora lead in National championship it’s hard to say that team options can be countered with Zenit’s ones.
Saturday, September 26
CSKA (Russia) vs PARMA (Russia)
Time: 13:00 (13:00 MSK)
Place: Russia, Moscow, USH CSKA
Broadcast: Match! Strana
CSKA: Although CSKA and Perm confrontation is one of the most principal is Russian basketball the real strength of these teams is on different levels. CSKA have never lost to PARMA in United League, and 116 points in the game in 2017 became second best franchise result for CSKA.
PARMA: Last season could be the best for the club in history if there were no season suspension because of coronavirus. So PARMA decided not to fix what isn’t broken, they only signed Vladimir Ivlev and sent Timofey Yakushin to Enisey. Last year both PARMA games against CSKA were held before the New Year, when Ural were losing more often than winning. Now Perm will try to prove that their suspended good streak wasn’t just luck.
Lokomotiv-Kuban (Russia) vs Zielona Gora (Poland)
Time: 16:00 (16:00 MSK)
Place: Russia, Krasnodar, Basket-Hall
Broadcast: TV Start
Lokomotiv-Kuban: Just before the start of the season Loko suffered a big loss – the leader Johnny O’Bryant left the team. Considering other roster changes (Kulagin, Fridzon, Ivlev left) Kuban management is seriously challenged. The rookies Reggie Lynch and Kevin Hervey will try to replace the brightest Loko’s froncourt player. And Jordan Crawford, who was averaging 12,2 points per game in 280 games in the NBA and posterized League’s star LeBron James when he was a school kid, will do his best to become the most loved player and first offensive option.
Zielona Gora: The Poles will be challenged in the first days of the new season, there will be 2 games against potential contenders in three days. Just like Zenit’s confrontation history, Loko’s is unlucky as well – 0 wins in 4 games. However, in the latest that was in December 2019 Zielona Gora was very close to win one but Loko stood the tight ending. To be fair, key players of that game left the club – Drew Gordon and Ivica Radic now play for other teams and Tony Meier retired this summer.
Zenit (Russia) vs Kalev (Estonia)
Time: 18:30 (18:30 MSK)
Place: Russia, Saint Petersburg, Sibur Arena
Broadcast: TV Start
Zenit: The overall score in north-western derby is 9:3 in favor of Zenit. But last time Petersburg beat Kalev was in 2018. Since then games against Tallinn is a big deal for Zenit: for example, in February the team headed by Joan Plaza couldn’t hold Kyle Vinales who scored 29 points. Xavier Pascual will try to beat losing streak and take 10th win over Kalev.
Kalev: It will be extremely hard to prolong the winning streak for Kalev, this offseason the team roster changed hardly (there are only 3 last year players this year). There are now famous names in Kalev no more, Janari Joesaar, Vinales and Kristjan Kitsing left the team, thus Tallinn should believe in Roberts Stelmahers’ skills of establishing team chemistry and developing young talents. The Latvian specialist has already proved that he can handle it – after games last season Kalev was 5th in standings outplaying Zenit 2 times.
Monday, September 28
Enisey (Russia) vs Khimki (Russia)
Time: 19:30 (15:30 MSK)
Place: Russia, Kransoyarsk, Arena Sever
Broadcast: TV Start
Enisey: The biggest roster loss for Siberians this offseason is Denis Zakharov, the sniper spent his best season in career and moved to Zenit. But the main news for Krasnoyarsk fans wasn’t signing new foreigners (the most interesting is Tyus Battle) but guard Mikhail Kulagin coming, he will probably get much more minutes than in CSKA
Khimki: Last season Enisey was real contenders’ thunderstorm outplaying Loko, UNICS and CSKA. But Khimki beat Enisey twice – in the first game with 20-point gap, but in the second with less confidence (Enisey were close to overtime, but game-winning shot by Denis Zakharov wasn’t a success). Although the schedule is tight (from 20 to 28 September Khimki will spend 3 games in the League) Khimki is considered as clear favourite, furthermore Alexey Shved may recover before the game. However, Khimki can not rely on Stefan Jovic Khimki in this game, according to Rimas Kurtinaitis words the Serbian may miss 2 months.
