Facing the unknown
PRE-GAME BREAKDOWN
The pause for Muscovites turned out to be long - the previous game was played on February 18.
Just two of the foreign players remained in CSKA - Nikola Milutinov and Will Clyburn, who is recovering from an injury. The coaching staff also does not count on Vladimir Ivlev (illness).
The red-and-blue away roster includes 13 players – along with the main team, CSKA-2 basketball players Filipp Gafurov, Alexander Evseev, Vladimir Karpenko, Ivan Pyn’ko, Yuri Umrikhin and Dmitry Khalturin went to the banks of the Volga.
Avtodor also suffered significant personnel losses. In particular, instead of Emil Raikovic, who left Saratov, the team is now led by assistant Vladislav Konovalov. However, Saratov has not yet published any official information about changes in the roster.
WORD TO THE COACH
Dimitris Itoudis, CSKA head coach:
With all the respect I don’t know exact situation of Avtodor. They had very competitive team but they had some changes recently. So we will face the unknown. We also had a lot of changes, we are using the help of our second team, many players from CSKA-2 joined us here. Nikola Milutinov is working with us, Will Clyburn still works individually. We are practicing seriously, we have good competition. We are in a new circumstances for us, we will have different rotation, we will play different type of the game, but we are looking forward to that.
PAST MATCHUPS
Wins/losses: 58-16
Game of 2021-22 VTB League season:
04-Jan-2022. CSKA – Avtodor: 92-65 (+27)
SHORT DOSSIER
Avtodor Saratov
Founded: 1960
Colors: black, white
Home court: Kristall Ice Palace (5,500)
President: Vladimir Rodionov
Head coach: Emil Rajkovic
Website: www.avtodor.ru
Trophy case: 4-time Russian League runner-up (1994, 97, 98, 99), 2-time Russian League bronze winner (1992, 96), EuroCup semifinalist (1998), Superleague A champion (1997, 98), Superleague B champion (2009), Superleague champion (2013/14)
