Olimpia continues in its stretch of five road games over six EuroLeague games with a trip to Moscow to face CSKA, who has won the same number of games, but has lost one less having still to play the home game with Panathinaikos. It is a high-ranking challenge, that will be staged on Thursday 11 March (at 18:00 Italian time) at the Megasport Arena. The degree of difficulty is clear: CSKA is first in terms of points scored, rebounds captured, it’s first in offensive rebounds, first in fouls drawn and consequently in free throws attempted. Thus, despite having lost six times in the second half of the season, it retained the second place in the standing thanks to the longest winning streak of the season, 12 games. The last of those wins was taken at the Mediolanum Forum after an overtime. One of the protagonists of that win was Nikola Milutinov, the Serbian center who, however, underwent surgery on his shoulder and was replaced by athletic and experienced Michael Eric. CSKA has also overcome other injuries and has added in addition to Eric also Iffe Lundberg, a Danish guard from Zielona Gora, who’s averaging 10.7 points in his first three outings.

COACH ETTORE MESSINA – “CSKA lost its starting and dominant center, Nikola Milutinov, and like everybody else suffered some injuries, but its club structure, its tradition, coaching and the ability of its players, is still a perennial EuroLeague championship contender. It’s an extremely difficult game. We know, because we totally lacked this the first time we faced them, how important will be to be able to control the rebounds, along with a solid defense over their excellent shooters.”

SERGIO RODRIGUEZ – “It’s obviously a very difficult game against a strong team. Winning in Moscow is always a very complicated task for everybody, but especially at this time, after the loss that they suffered last week in Istanbul.”

THE REFEREES – Olegs Latisevs (Latvia), Miguel Angel Perez (Spain), Tomasz Trawicki (Poland).

HISTORY LESSON – When Olimpia won its first Champions Cup in Bologna in 1966, beating Slavia Prague, in the semifinals it was CSKA who surrendered to the team led by Cesare Rubini 68-57, with 20 points from Bill Bradley and 15 scored by Massimo Masini. In today’s EuroLeague (since 2000), CSKA is leading the all-time series 11-3. Olimpia has won three games in a row – in 2008/09 at home 80-79 after an amazing comeback and in 2010/11 first 88-73 in Moscow and then 71-65 at the Mediolanum Forum – before losing in all the last 11 games. Adding the pre-EuroLeague era, in addition to the 68-57 semifinals in Bologna, there are four games played in 1982/83 and then in 1996/97 with the home team taking all of them. CSKA Moscow is leading 13-6 overall, including the last December game in Milan won 91-87 after an overtime. In that game Olimpia had 21 points from Zach LeDay and 17 from Kevin Punter.

CSKA MOSCOW – Point guard Mike James is averaging 19.4 points and is the first scorer of the season as well as the sixth-best passer with 5.9 assists per game. Daniel Hackett is scoring 9.0 points per game and shooting 44.4 percent from three. Darrun Hilliard averages 10.3 points per game. Will Clyburn is scoring 13.3 on average, has missed eight games, but he has since returned. Iffe Lundberg was added recently and in the first three games he made 50.0 percent from three. The veteran Nikita Kurbanov, who has always started, is also a big part of the team. At power forward, the Georgian Toko Shengelia (Shields’ teammate in Vitoria), is averaging 10.7 points and 4.7 rebounds per game. The German Johannes Voigtmann produces 6.6 points, is shooting 44.4 percent from three and grabs 4.5 rebounds per game. Joel Bolomboy is an explosive big man who is shooting 63.5 percent from two. Michael Eric during the 2018/19 season at Darussafaka played along Jeremy Evans. Finally, Semen Antonov is an excellent shooter.

THE HINES CONNECTION – Kyle Hines played at CSKA for seven seasons, winning the EuroLeague in 2016 and 2019, and reaching the Final Four in six out of six seasons. He has also won the VTB League six times. In all, he played 218 EuroLeague games in CSKA with 1,808 points scored and 949 rebounds captured.

THE RODRIGUEZ CONNECTION – Sergio Rodriguez played for CSKA for two years, winning the VTB League and the 2019 EuroLeague twice. He played 71 EuroLeague games with CSKA, with 852 points scored and 237 assists made.

THE MICOV ​​CONNECTION – Vlado Micov played 61 EuroLeague games with the CSKA Moscow during the 2012/13 and 2013/14 seasons. In both cases, CSKA reached the Final Four. He has won the VTB twice.

THE HACKETT CONNECTION – Daniel Hackett played for two years in Milan between the 2013/14 season (not entirely) and the 2014/15 season. He won the 2014 Italian League. At the end of his stint in Milan, he played for two years at Olympiacos and one at Bamberg, before moving to Moscow. With Olimpia he played 42 EuroLeague games.

THE JAMES CONNECTION – Mike James played in Milan in the 2018/19 season at the end of which he won the EuroLeague scoring crown with 595 points over 30 games and set the club record for assists in one game with 12 against CSKA Moscow.

THE MESSINA CONNECTION – Coach Ettore Messina spent six seasons on the CSKA Moscow bench: he coached the team six times in the Final Four, winning the EuroLeague title in 2006 and 2008. He left CSKA in 2009 after four years and returned in 2012 for two more seasons during which he won the VTB League. In 2006 and 2008 he was named the EuroLeague Coach of the Year. His EuroLeague record while at CSKA Moscow is 123-33.

A CLUB RECORD FOR WINS – Olimpia has set a new club record for most wins in one season. The previous one dated back to the 2013/14 season with another format when Olimpia won 5 regular season games, 10 Top 16 games and one playoff game, reaching a total of 16. Now the wins are 18.

THE COMPARISON – Olimpia has won 18 games in the first 28 of this EuroLeague season, which is exactly the same number of games played last season when the season was interrupted. Last year the team won 12 games at this point, six less.

THE SHIELDS STREAK – Shavon Shields rides a streak of six consecutive games scoring in double figures. In these six games, in which he had a minimum of 11 points (vs Maccabi) and a high of 23 (in Kaunas), he averaged 16.3 points per game, shooting 31/43 from two (72.1 percent), 9/20 from three (45.0 percent), 9/11 from the line (81.8 percent). He also grabbed 5.0 rebounds per game.

NOTES – Gigi Datome is second behind only Kyle Kuric (Barcelona) in three-point shooting at 56.7 percent. Zach LeDay is fifth at 50.0 percent. Shavon Shields is seventh at 47.7 percent. Shields has made at least one three in 16 of the last 17 games played. Kevin Punter has scored a three in 9 of his last 10 games played. Kyle Hines made the 250th block of his career in Kaunas. He is now second ever behind Bryant Dunston. He surpassed Fran Vazquez.

 

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