The traditional VTB United League SuperCup will take place at the VTB Arena in Moscow on 21-24 September. Everything you need to know about the tournament is in the League and the Steal Telegram channel big guide.
Format change
This is the third SuperCup – and the third format. The tournament was created in 2021, but its roots go much deeper, to the Aleksandr Gomelsky Cup.
The tournament’s forerunner also changed the format several times, starting from a competition for youth teams and ending with the European top teams in Moscow. But in the end, the Gomelsky Cup could not survive the coronavirus: in 2020, neither Crvena Zvezda nor Panathinaikos could come to the tournament due to COVID; Lokomotiv Kuban and UNICS, who were supposed to replace them, were also later forced to withdraw. As a result, all participants except CSKA changed, and the Army team expectedly beat MBA, PARMA-PARI and their own youth team.
The following year, the Moscow City Sports Department decided to make radical changes and started organising the tournament in cooperation with the United League. The entire sports and organzational part was entrusted to the League, while the City helped with administrative tasks. The trophy was named after Aleksandr Gomelsky, but now the four best teams of the previous season – CSKA, Loko, Zenit and UNICS – were invited to Moscow.
A year later, there were six participants – the four Russian teams were joined by Serbian Mega and Partizan. In its second year of existence, the SuperCup became an international tournament.
This year the format has changed again. Now the tournament features eight teams – the top six from last VTB League regular season and Turkey Fenerbahce and Besiktas as guest teams. The system is Olympic, the loser immediately loses his chances of winning and goes to play for 5th-8th or 3rd-4th place, depending on the stage at which he was defeated.
Participants
Zenit
Last year SuperCup champion and the year before United League champion has had one of the best transfer campaigns of the summer. Reigning Russian champions Georgiy Zhbanov and Vince Hunter moved from Kazan toSt. Petersburg; national team captain Timofey Gerasimov arrived from Krasnoyarsk; Bojan Dubljevic (11 years in Valencia) and Kyle Kuric (5 years in Barcelona) moved from the Euroleague.
In addition, the team managed to retain head coach Xavier Pascual and Trent Frazier – Thomas Heurtel duo. It is still unclear whether the French guard will be able to play in the SuperCup, but the Zenit won last year without him.
The St. Petersburg team already has a preseason trophy – the team won the Kondrashin and Belov Cup for the third time in a row. The SuperCup is the first official competition of the new season.
UNICS
The reigning United League champion was able to do the almost impossible in the summer – retain playoff MVP Nenad Dimitrijevic, who bought out his contract from Valencia. Jalen Reynolds and Louis Labeyrie also stayed, Marcos Knight decided not to change anything.
Daryl Macon was replaced by Eric Green, Ismael Bako replaced Vince Hunter – it seems that Velimir Perasovic team will not notice the losses. Actually, Perasovic himself remained, having re-signed with the Kazan team.
Among the Russian signings, Dmitriy Kulagin has already earned a spot in the starting lineup – at least in the preseason. Evgeniy Kolesnikov, Artem Komolov, Mark Tikhonenko and Aleksaner Stulenkov were signed along with him.
UNICS was not without a preseason trophy either, leaving Nizhny Novgorod as the Khairetdinov Cup winners and the finalists of the Kondrashin and Belov Cup.
CSKA
One of the most mysterious teams of the upcoming season, which was forced to rebuild this summer. The changes started with the coaching staff: Emil Rajkovic stayed, but two assistants – Anton Yudin and Denis Godlevskiy, who had been with CSKA for 17 years, left the team. They were replaced by Oleg Bartunov and Sergey Tkachenko from Runa.
But much more significant changes occurred in the roster with Shved, Milutinov, Moore, Davidovac, Cacok and Komolov leaving. CSKA tried to find worthy replacements for those who left, but it was difficult to replace systemically important players. Anyway, Tony Jeckiri, Amath M’Baye and Melo Trimble came in, and Nikita Mikhailovskiy was brought in from Saratov.
Emil Rajkovic has already pointed out that his team will not be able to rely on the offencewith no Shved – Milutinov duo, and will play from defence. Well, the SuperCup is the first opportunity to evaluate the new CSKA. It is still unclear if Trimble, who is injured, will be able to play.
Lokomotiv Kuban
The Krasnodar team retained their entire roster from the previous season, which reached the VTB League finals, and naturally expect to be even stronger in the new season. Only Ilya Sorokin, who mostly played in the farm team, left, and Ivan Paunic fate is unclear.
Meanwhile, last year’s MINSK leader Uladzislau Blizniuk and center Jordan Morgan have arrived.
Loko played pre-season games in Turkey without Sekulic, who was busy at the World Cup, and the team looked out of sorts. But at the local Kuban Cup, with the head coach on the bench, the Krasnodar team beat Runa and Samara – and won the Cup. Loko seem to be gaining shape.
Pari Nizhny Novgorod
Like every summer, Nizhny has noticeably got renewed. Among the most significant losses are Maksim Salash and Jermaine Love, but the signings are also quite interesting: PARMA-PARI leader for the first half of last season, Bryon Allen, last season League champion Andrey Vorontsevich, Vladimir Ivlev, and 6 more interesting names, including Timofey Rudovskiy, who changed his NCAA career for his United League debut.
As always, Pari NN will try to caught the stronger teams and will be the favourite in all other games – at least as of today.
Sometimes Zoran Lukic knows how to surprise, like in the Russian Cup Final Four in March. Well, the SuperCup games are also elimination games.
MBA
The Moscow team had a very strong debut season, and now the expectations from their game are much higher than a year ago. Even making the top six will be hard enough to repeat, and surpassing that result (making it to the VTB League semifinals) still looks like an impossible task.
Nevertheless, MBA is not giving up tactics and continues to play without foreigners. Platonov, Remizov, Tikhonenko and Pushkov left the team in the summer, but Barashkov, Minchenko, Trushkin and Sheiko came in. The roster has only become stronger and deeper, and all the leaders – Konovalov, Kasatkin, Yakushin, Lopatin, Khomenko stayed.
It will be a real test for the young squad, especially since Vasily Karasev faces Dimitris Itoudis and his Fenerbahce in the Quarterfinal.
Fenerbahce
The Turkish team is travelling to Russia as one of the main contenders. A 4-time Coach of the Year and member of the United League Hall of Fame Dimitris Itoudis heads the team.
Fenerbahce had a notable transfer campaign, but lost Raul Neto – the Brazilian had just arrived from the NBA, but was injured in the first World Cup game and will now miss more than six months. However, the Istanbul team has someone to fill this position – from Yam Madar (who already played in the SuperCup last year with Partizan) to experienced Nick Calathes.
Jonathan Motley, who had an incredible 2021/22 season in Loko and is also familiar with the SuperCup, is also travelling to Russia. There is a chance that he will meet with the Krasnodar team again, but to do so he will have to win MBA.
Besiktas
Another person who is no stranger to Russian basketball is Besiktas coach Dusan Alimpijevic. At the age of 32, the Serbian coached Avtodor, and although he was fired after a couple of months, he was not too upset and continued as if nothing had happened. The season before Alimpijevic won the EuroCup Coach of the Year, and this summer he moved to Besiktas and is back in Russia for a few days.
Alimpijevic assistant Marko Sekulic also knows the SuperCup. Sekulic has spent the last six years in Mega, which means two things: firstly, he was also already been to the SuperCup last year, and secondly, he knows CSKA forward Samson Ruzhentsev, who played in Mega previously.
Besiktas has already played with Zenit at the pre-season friendly game in Turkey. Then the St. Petersburg team was stronger, but it was not easy. Now, when all the teams are trying to reach their maximum by the start of the season, everything can change.
Top plots
Dimitris Itoudis returns to Moscow
Fenerbahce head coach spent eight years in Moscow andwon everything he could, including two Euroleagues. He was named the United League Coach of the Year four times, Euroleague Coach of the Year twice, won the Russian championship and VTB League six times each, helped CSKA become the top European club twice, coached in the VTB League All-Star Game and even won the SuperCup in 2021, becoming the tournament best coach.
He left CSKA in 2022. Itoudis lost his last game to Zenit and along with that defeat gave the St Petersburg team the championship, announcing his resignation immediately after the game. Perhaps it was because of this farewell to Moscow that Itoudis stay in Russia left a dual feeling: on the one hand, the Greek coach had obviously hit the ceiling, but on the other hand, there was still some ambiguity – despite the years coloured by titles and medals.
The Istanbul team coming in is a big deal for Russian basketball nowadays, and the team coming in with Itoudis is even more interesting.
MBA plays Fenerbahce
A year ago, the Moscow team was just preparing to make its United League debut. At the time, they were predicted to finish outside the playoff zone – no one believed that a team made up of only Russian and youth players could be competitive at that level.
If head coach Vasily Karasev had been told that he would be playing with Fenerbahce in a year, he probably would have twisted his finger. Dimitris Itoudis probably would have twiddled his thumb, too, if he had heard that.
But the United League ScuperCUp is a place where amazing happens. The very first game of the tournament provides a show that may never be repeated.
Loko performance
Last season League finalists did not lose a single key player. It is hard to find a similar stat, but it seems to be a consistency unique to Russian basketball.
Last year, the Krasnodar team defeated Zenit in the SuperCup opening game. This year, the Krasnodar team face CSKA at the start. If you think back to last year’s United League playoffs, the rivalry is quite crucial.
The just-ended Kuban Cup left the impression that Loko is already in a good shape. Will they upset CSKA again, or will the Army team get revenge for their Semifinals defeat?
Will Zenit be able to defend the Cup?
In the Quarterfinals, Zenit will face Besiktas. Ironically, the win over the St. Petersburg team was the Serbian coach’s most vivid memory of his 72-day career in Avtodor.
In early September, the two teams had already played in Gloria Cup and Zenit were stronger. However, Zenit won by 4 points and Xavi Pascual still had problems with the Turkish team excellent offence.
Zenit is the reigning SuperCup champion, but this year roster is strong, and it will not be easy to defend the Cup. It will be interesting to see if they can become the first two-time winners of the trophy.
The SuperCup 2023 schedule
September 21
17:00 MBA vs. Fenerbahce
20:00 Lokomotiv Kuban vs. CSKA
September 22
17:00 UNICS vs. Pari Nizhny Novgorod
20:00 Zenit vs Besiktas
September 23
11:00 5-8 places game
14:00 5-8 places game
17:00 Semifinal
20:00 Semifinal
September 24
11:00 7th place game
14:00 5th place game
17:00 3rd place game
20:00 Final
