Translated material
Dragon's Lair
Triumph lost in the tiny German town of Quakenbrück
The first matches of the opening round of the ULEB Cup playoffs, the second most important continental club tournament, took place in different European cities. Based on the results of the group stage, where 54 teams were divided into nine groups, all four Russian participants reached the knockout tournament, and all of them have good chances of making it to the 1/8 finals.Only the Moscow region “Triumph”, led by Stanislav Eremin, winner of the “Golden Basket” prize of the national basketball federation for the best Russian super league coach, could not cope with its rival, the German “Artland Dragons”. The remaining teams - Khimki, the capital's Dynamo and Kazan UNICS - won.
“Triumph” met on the road with a club from the tiny town of Quakenbrück with a population of 13 thousand. Fans from neighboring towns willingly come to the “dragons” games, so the three-thousand-capacity arena was packed to capacity. Back in 1994, the local team played in the fourth division of the German championship - the second regional league. The “dragons” made it into the Bundesliga in 2003, and last season they created a real sensation. Having taken only eighth place in the regular season, the basketball players from Quakenbrück unexpectedly reached the finals in the playoffs.
“Triumph” is formally in its first season. In fact, this is the former Dynamo near Moscow. When re-registering the club, a rather strange situation arose. “Triumph” became the legal successor of “Dynamo”, taking its place in the Super League and European Cups, but did not want to bear obligations under previously concluded contracts, as a result of which such a famous player as Nikita Morgunov was left without work for a short period. However, the 2007 European champion found a job without any problems, finding himself in the camp of Khimki, a direct competitor of the team from Lyubertsy.
The Artland Dragons have a whole colony of American legionnaires. Of the ten players who took the court in the match with Triumph, nine are US citizens. In the first ten minutes, thanks to hits by Fedor Likholitov, his namesake Dmitriev and Kristaps Valters, the guests secured an eight-point advantage - 24:16. In the middle of the second period, after Igor Zamansky's hit, the Russian club's lead increased to 11 points. The hosts' long pursuit was crowned with success. Before the start of the final quarter, the advantage of the Moscow Region basketball players was minimal. Towards the end of the match, Leon Rogers, a player from the hosts' starting five, sent a three-pointer into the Triumph hoop. This black American became the most productive player for the winners, and his timely long-range shot decided the outcome of the match - 81:75. Among Stanislav Eremin's wards, the top scorer was also a basketball player from the USA - Mair Chatman (16). In the return match a week later, Triumph needs to eliminate a six-point deficit.
Kazan UNICS created a very decent foundation in their native Basket Hall. Turkish Cup winner PTT (Ankara) was defeated with a score of 91:65. True, the first half of the match turned out to be somewhat illogical. The hosts won the opening quarter 23:10, but in the second ten-minute segment of the match the team of Serbian specialist Aco Petrovich failed - 14:28. The long break was enough for the Kazan coach to make significant adjustments to the actions of his players. UNICS French legionnaire Tariq Kirksey had an excellent match, setting a personal scoring record in the European Cup - 31 points. Tariq showed enviable accuracy - out of nine shots from medium and close range, he was accurate eight times (88.8%), in addition, he also scored four three-point hits.
The best player of Russia's victorious 2005 European Youth Championship, Nikita Kurbanov, made his debut for UNICS, transferred from CSKA on loan. The leaders of the army club have a rather strange personnel policy. Lately, there have been endless complaints about personnel problems with Russian players, while already established young players are loaned out to competitors. It’s enough to remember how great Anton Ponkrashov, who belongs to the Red-Blues, played in Khimki’s victorious Russian Cup final against CSKA. Now another “friend among strangers” has appeared - Kurbanov, who scored seven points in the first meeting for UNICS.
The capital's Dynamo team defeated the Polish "Slask" (Wroclaw), which shares fourth and fifth places in its national championship, on the road - 85:78. For the winners, Lithuanian Robertas Javtokas added 28 points to the team's treasury, and all 12 of his field goals were accurate. When taking free throws, the Baltic team was not so accurate - three misses out of seven attempts. Dynamo's newcomer, Serbian center Nenad Misanovic, whose contract was signed a few days ago, did not play in Wroclaw - he was not even in the match lineup. Note that Dynamo completely lost the rebound to Poland - 17:31. Meanwhile, at the end of January, the club management released Serbian Nikola Prkacin, third in the team in terms of rebounds at the group stage of the ULEB Cup, to the Greek Panathinaikos.
Khimki near Moscow, thanks to an impressive breakthrough in the fourth period (25:9), beat the German Cologne in Germany - 91:72. All 16 return matches will take place next Tuesday, February 26th.