Turkish series

Town within a city

The flight to the new place was comfortable. The organizers of the tournament in Banja Luka again pleased the Muscovites with a charter; just a couple of hours later, CSKA was already on Turkish soil, and soon checked into the luxurious Nirvana Metropolitan hotel. The hotel is amazing in its scale - it can be considered a completely independent small town, with many restaurants, shops, a football stadium, a sports complex and a concert hall, where famous performers show up.

That same evening, the Red-Blues tried out both the gym and the parquet floor of Hall No. 4, where all games of the tournament will be held. By the way, it’s not entirely correct to call “Basketball Weeks” a tournament - in fact, it’s just a series of friendly games without any system.

Everyone in the ranks of Muscovites is healthy. Samson Ruzhentsev, who remained in his room in Banja Luka for two days due to illness, is back in action. Now Sam trains without restrictions.

Not the same Besiktas

The rich times for our next opponent are far behind. Now it’s even hard to believe that relatively recently, in the 2000s, such stars as Allen Iverson, Deron Williams, Carlos Arroyo and Pops Mensah-Bonsu were coming to play for the team. The club even played in the Euroleague in the 2012-13 season (both times lost to CSKA in the regular season).

The most famous character of the current Istanbul club is Dusan Alimpijevic. One of many former Avtodor coaches - by the way, Nikita Mikhailovsky also played under him - was appointed this summer after three seasons at Bursaspor. There, by the way, he was recognized as the best coach of the EuroCup.

Now Besiktas has five foreign players. Of the four Americans, only one has experience playing in the Euroleague - Jonah Matthews, who was in Asvel last season. Dominican Angel Delgado played two games for the Clippers in the first year of his professional career, he was the rookie of the year in the G-League, but was not remembered for anything else. In addition, he will not play against CSKA - he has not yet joined the team after the World Cup.

And the biggest experience of playing at a high level has the 26-year-old team captain Egehan Arna, he sat on the bench of Fenerbahce for five seasons and a season at Efes.

Nirvana Basketball Weeks Schedule

September 12

20:00. CSKA – Besiktas

September 13

20:15. CSKA – Turk Telekom

September 14

18:00. Galatasaray - Karsiyaka
20:00. Anadolu Efes - Besiktas

15 September

18:00. Karsiyaka - Turk Telecom
20:00. CSKA – Anadolu Efes

September 16

15:00. Galatasaray - Besiktas

September 17

13:00. Anadolu Efes - Karsiyaka
16:00. Turk Telekom - Galatasaray

Brief dossier

Besiktas (Istanbul, Turkey)

Founded: 1967
Colors: black, white
Home arena: BJK Akatlar Arena (3,200)
President: Ahmet Nur Cebi
Head coach: Dusan Alimpijevic
Website: www.bjk.com.tr
Achievements:
- Eurochallenge winner (2012),
- 2-time champion of Turkey (1975, 2012),
- winner of the Turkish Cup (2012),
- winner of the Turkish President's Cup (2012)