The coach of the Super League club threatened the team with a squad change

On December 20-21, Niko-Basket lost two home matches to Dnepr and Zaporozhye in the eighth round of the Super League and therefore finished the calendar year in 9th place in the standings with 4 wins in 14 matches.

Head coach of the team after the defeat of Zaporozhye (67:78) Valentin Berestnev He listed the reasons for the team’s unsuccessful results as follows:

“Counting the first, third and fourth quarters, we won by one point each. We lost the entire game in the second quarter. We had a 7-point lead in the second quarter, but we finished with minus 9. We lost the fight, lost the rebounds, made childish mistakes. This caused the opponent to get over the shock of being behind 12:19 and the game turned in another direction.

We could not find a leader who could do what Lovings and Lishchina did. Eisa scored almost 30 points per game, surpassing our fourth point.

I would like to thank our fans who supported us until the end. They said warm and kind words to us after the match. This is our first year playing in the Super League. Most of the players have no experience of playing in the Super League: Max (Grischuk), Vitaly (Volodin), Bodya (Likhoy). Zaitsev, Safonov and Garbar have experience. Kabanov has little experience. This is a difficult season for them, which will show who will advance to the Super League level and who will not.

Therefore, I would like to thank our fans once again. There were two alarms today. Yesterday we finished the match three hours later than planned. Despite this, people stayed and supported us. We are very grateful for this support.

We train six times a week, twice a day to improve our game. I believe that we will overcome this situation and have a team that will compete for Super League awards, become a strong middle team and beat everyone at home, just like 10-15 years ago.

Most of the guys have no experience, so mistakes are made. Not technical, tactical. There is a lack of a leader who will take responsibility in difficult times. Now we are looking for such a player in the team. If we can’t find it, we will face three foreign players like most other teams. If our audience likes it.”