By Yegor Glebov
Andrey Krivonos’ trainees achieved their first victory on February 10th, defeating Lithuanian Neptūnas from Klaipeda at Minsk-Arena — 93:71 (24:17, 24:19, 20:18, 25:17). American legionary Tierre Brown, 33, who is new to the team, was the best shooter on the Minsk squad, earning 23 points.
Despite this success, the squad remain in 10th place in Group B, which is led by Žalgiris Kaunas, with 13 victories over 14 matches; CSKA Moscow has 11 victories from 13 games.
In the next round, Belarus’ champions will face CSKA in an away match and will finish the group stage with three home games: VEF Riga on February 28th, Žalgiris on March 10th and Czech Nymburk on March 24th.
Samara’s Krylya Sovetov leads Group A jointly with St. Petersburg Spartak, Khimki and Kazan-based UNIX: all have achieved ten victories.
After finishing the group tournaments, the two best teams from each group will go through to the 1/4 finals; the clubs ranked 3-6th will play in the 1/8 finals.
