Basketball
Let’s bow our heads. Legendary basketball player killed by rocket in Lviv
Every day at 9 am, Ukrainians commemorate the people who lost their lives in the Russia-Ukraine war. Today Sport.ua pays tribute to the outstanding Ukrainian basketball player of two EuroBaskets participants, Viktor Kobzisty, who was killed exactly two years ago, on December 29, 2023, supposedly by a Russian missile deep in the lines in Lviv. The man will remain 44 years old forever.
The legend of “Budivelnik”
Viktor Kobzisty was born on March 7, 1979 in Kremenchug, Poltava region. As a child, Victor played hockey and football. I quit football before because I was too high for this game. Later, Kobzisty quit hockey and focused on basketball. Victor, who studied at Kremenchug children’s and youth school No. 2, was considered one of the most talented players of his age in Ukraine.
After graduating from nine secondary school classes, Kobzisty entered the Kremenchug Pedagogical School named after Makarenko and in 1995, at the age of 16, he became a player of Kremenchug Neftekhim, where he made his debut in professional competitions. In 1996, Victor moved to Russian Samara, where he played only in the second team. Due to the fact that the club management rejected the offer to accept Russian citizenship.
In 1999, Kobzisty returned to Ukraine and signed a contract with CSKA Kiev, with which he became the silver medalist of the championship and the winner of the national cup in his first season. The army team finished the next championship in third place, after which Kobzisty moved to the ranks of Mariupol Azovmash.
In 2001, Victor tried playing abroad again – he went to Bulgaria, where he spent a season as a member of Yambolgazy. In the same year, Kobzisty played in the EuroBasket final as part of the Ukrainian national team.
Victor returned to Ukraine in 2002 and immediately became the leader of the Kyiv Budivelnik in the broadest sense. The legendary club was going through difficult times at that time, but the young people gathered in the team led by Kobzisty showed incredible thirst and attracted the attention of the fans with their fighting character. Victor spent four brilliant seasons with the Kyiv team.
And although “Budivelnik” was not among the leaders at that time, Kobzisty regularly received calls from the Ukrainian national teams. In particular, he played with the national team in the second EuroBasket of his career in 2005 and with the student team in two World Universiades. In 2005, Ukrainians won the silver medal, for which Kobzisty received the title of international master of sports. In 2006, Victor moved to Dnepr, but in 2008 he returned to Budivelnik and with him became the champion of Ukraine for the first time in 2011, after which he ended his playing career.
Coaching activities
Completing his performances, Kobzisty became assistant head coach of Budivelnik in 2011 and worked as an assistant to Josep Berrocal, Zvezdan Mitrovic and Ainars Bagatskis until 2014. Later, Victor took over as head of Dnepr-Azot from Kamensky, with whom he worked for a year.
In 2015, Kobzisty became president of Kremen from his hometown Kremenchug, and in 2017-2018 he played several matches for the club’s second team in the first division. He held this position until 2020 and also served as president of the club’s children and youth sports school.
In 2021, Victor was invited to work at the Lviv City Basketball Federation, and from 2023 he worked as the head coach of the women’s club Dynamo from Kiev, which plays in the Ukrainian Super League.
Death
Viktor Kobzisty also came to Lviv at the end of 2023 on basketball-related matters. He rented an apartment on Gnat Khotkevich Street in the Sykhov residential area. And it was this house that was hit by a Russian missile on December 29. One person died then. Victor Kobzisty.
Victor was buried in his hometown of Kremenchug on January 2, 2024. The funeral took place in St. Nicholas Cathedral, and the basketball player found eternal peace at the Svishtovsky cemetery.
Family
Victor and his wife raised two children. One of the sons, Alexander, now 22, followed in his father’s footsteps and is now also a basketball player. He played on Ukraine’s youth and junior national teams, made his national team debut, and currently plays for the University of Oregon team in the NCAA.
Source: Sport UA
Ralph Bean is a writer for Sportish. Ralph has written about sports news for the last two years, and is currently an author on the site. He enjoys writing about sports, and hopes to cover more stories in the future.
True, his team was left without a victory.
Over the past year, fans have become accustomed to news about records coming from overseas. Until recently, their main supplier was hockey player Alexander Ovechkin. But in the 2025/26 season, successes in the NBA were added to the achievements of our athletes in the NHL. This became possible thanks to the play of Yegor Demin, who again played a great match the day before with the Brooklyn Nets.
If the Russian does not slow down, then in the future, like Ovechkin, he has every chance to go down in the history of North American sports.
On the way to a dream
Russian representation in the NBA has always been more modest than in the NHL. And even with certain achievements, and Timofey Mozgov and Alexander Kaun, by the way, became league champions, the thought does not arise to compare the successes of Russian hockey players and basketball players overseas. How many American basketball fans now remember Sergei Monya, Yaroslav Korolev, Pavel Podkolzin?
Only Andrei Kirilenko stands out from the general background – the Russian forward played in the NBA for quite a long time. I even once went to an all-star game, where I played side by side with people like Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, Yao Ming, Allen Iverson. But how many star matches did our hockey players have overseas?
With all due respect to the AK-47 game, he still does not reach the level of a North American basketball legend. Time will tell whether Yegor Demin, who powerfully broke into the NBA at the age of 19, will be able to write his name into history. But for now, the Brooklyn Nets basketball player is doing everything possible to make his dream come true.
Prolific newcomer
Kirilenko was selected by the Utah Jazz in the first round of the NBA draft as the 24th pick, and Brooklyn took Demin eighth. But these were still advances, which have so far been fully justified. The newcomer regularly appears on the court, and with the exception of the first couple of weeks of the season, in the starting lineup. At the same time, Egor is not just serving his number: in the last six matches he scored at least 14 points, in two cases he reached the 20 point mark.
In the next regular season game, the first basketball player in the league with the letter “e” on his uniform scored 23 points in the match against Golden State. Demin managed not only to repeat his best result, but also set a Brooklyn record for three-pointers among newcomers – seven accurate hits from behind the arc. True, the Russian team still lost with a score of 107:120, but in the context of the personal success of our basketball player overseas, this is a secondary issue.
Of course, to achieve sporting greatness, Egor needs to spend more than one season at this level, but at least a dozen and a half. Demin, with 275 points in the NBA, did not even reach the results of Sergei Karasev (287), although he can do this in the next game. And then new landmarks will appear: Viktor Khryapa (643), Alexey Shved (1349), Timofey Mozgov (3072) and, of course, Andrey Kirilenko (9431). When the Russian surpasses the results of the AK-47, then we can talk about an established star in the NBA. In the meantime, we can only wish our basketball player not to lower his demands on himself and avoid serious injuries.
Source: Sportbox
I am a sports journalist who has been writing for a news website since 2015. My work primarily focuses on sports news, but I have also written about other topics such as technology and the arts. I have an extensive background in journalism, having worked as a reporter for a local newspaper before moving to a news website.
Basketball
Vembanyama’s double-double did not help San Antonio avoid defeat from Cleveland in the NBA match
San Antonio lost to Cleveland in a home game of the NBA regular season.
The meeting ended with a score of 113:101 (25:26, 24:29, 27:23, 37:23) in favor of the guests. The most productive player of the match was Cleveland basketball player Jarrett Allen, who scored 27 points. For San Antonio, Victor Vembanyama scored a double-double with 26 points and 14 rebounds.
Cleveland (18 wins/16 losses) is in eighth position in the Eastern Conference standings. San Antonio (23/9) is second in the West.
Results of other matches of the game day:
“Washington” — “Phoenix” — 101:115
“Charlotte” — “Milwaukee” — 113:123
“Toronto” – “Orlando” – 107:106
“Miami” — “Denver” — 147:123
“Chicago” – “Minnesota” – 101:136
“Houston” — “Indiana” — 126:119
“New Orleans” — “New York” — 125:130
“Oklahoma City” — “Atlanta” — 140:129
Portland – Dallas – 125:122
Source: Sportbox
I am a sports journalist who has been writing for a news website since 2015. My work primarily focuses on sports news, but I have also written about other topics such as technology and the arts. I have an extensive background in journalism, having worked as a reporter for a local newspaper before moving to a news website.
Russian basketball player Egor Demin set a Brooklyn record among newcomers for the number of three-pointers made in one match, the club’s press service reports.
In the NBA regular season match, Brooklyn lost to Golden State with a score of 107:120. Demin made 7 three-point shots, which is a club record among newcomers.
In total, Demin scored 23 points in the match, the Russian repeated his personal record for scoring in the NBA – he had previously scored 23 points in the November match with Philadelphia (103:115).
Brooklyn has 10 wins and 20 losses in 30 matches. Demin’s team is 12th in the Eastern Conference standings.
Source: Sportbox
I am a sports journalist who has been writing for a news website since 2015. My work primarily focuses on sports news, but I have also written about other topics such as technology and the arts. I have an extensive background in journalism, having worked as a reporter for a local newspaper before moving to a news website.
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