Long time no see

PRE-GAME BREAKDOWN

The Army Team returned from Tel Aviv on Friday evening, and on Saturday afternoon they were already preparing for the next game on the Megasport floor. The team remains shorthanded and uses CSKA-2 players during practices.

Astana also lost one of its leaders in February - Jaylen Barford moved to Lokomotiv Kuban.

WORD TO THE COACH

Dimitris Itoudis, CSKA head coach:

We go back to VTB League competition and we face Astana that did not play a game for quite a long time. We have respect to our opponent. Hickey is a main creator for them, their “bigs” Tikhonenko and Campbell spread the floor, they run the fast break. But it’s mainly on us, we should catch our rhythm as we continue to play shorthanded, we are healing some injuries. We did not play well in the part of first and in the second quarter against Maccabi, and even though we won the second half, we lacked continuity in our game. This is something we should work on.

“RELATIVITY” CONNECTIONS

Valery Tikhonenko, Astana General Manager, is a legend of CSKA. He played for the Army Men for 5 seasons (1985-87, 1997-2000) and coached the team for 2 years (2000-02).

PAST MATCHUPS

Win-loss record: 22-0
Games of 2020-21 season:
23-Sep-2020. Astana – CSKA: 60-93 (+33)
11-Apr-2021. CSKA – Astana: 100-77 (+23)

SHORT DOSSIER

BC Astana (Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan)
Founded: 2000
Colors: yellow, blue
Home court: SC Velotrack/Saryarka (9,270).
President: Valery Tikhonenko
Head coach: Darko Russo
Website: pbcastana.kz
Trophy case: 9-time Kazakhstan champion (2012-15, 17-21), 9-time Kazakhstan Cup winner (2011-14,17-21), FIBA Asian Champions Cup bronze winner (2017).