Forty-eight hours after the defeat in Kazan, Olimpia returns on the court, on the road again, again in Russia, this time in St. Petersburg. Zenit is coming off a home game, won against Alba Berlin. Zenit and Olimpia are placed at the top of the standing, separated by a single win. Unfortunately, the conditions are not the best for Milan, because Malcolm Delaney’s absence for the sixth consecutive game is joined by the loss of Dinos Mitoglou (left foot) and the emergency situation will hit the big men, too. On top of this, there is the quality of the opponents: Zenit has won its last four games, at home they have only lost to Real Madrid, and the other two defeats have come against opponents such as CSKA Moscow and Barcelona. Curiously, it is the team that has played the fewest close games of the entire EuroLeague: after winning by one in Kazan on the opening night, the next nine games ended with margins of at least six points. Among other things, the second and third EuroLeague coaches both for games won and coached in history, will face each other: Ettore Messina and Javi Pascual, respectively. The game will be played at 18:45 Italian time on Friday, 19.

COACH ETTORE MESSINA– “We are about to play a difficult game against another excellent team. We come off a bad loss in Kazan so obviously we want to get our cohesion back. However, Dinos Mitoglou’s absence will make our job more complicated.”

KYLE HINES – “We are coming off a bad loss in Kazan, it was the worst game of our season, so we want to bounce back against a very good team, full of talented players. Zenit is playing very well, especially at home. Our goal is to close this trip on a good note and play a good game”.

THE REFEREES – Robert Lottermoser (Germany), Juan Carlos Garcia (Spain), Robert Vyklicky (Czech Rep.).

ZENIT – They have the longest active winning streak, four consecutive wins, while missing the injured point guard Shabazz Napier. However, Connor Frankamp is playing at a very high level (averages 9.0 points per game, shooting 47.1 percent from three), and in general all the Zenit guards are expressing a high quality of play: Billy Baron (10.2 points per game) and even more Jordan Loyd, a EuroLeague veteran, 14.0 points per game, 3.5 assists, 61.7 percent shooting from two. The team is deep inside, too, with size (Arturas Gudaitis, 6.0 points per game, 58.1 percent from two), extreme athleticism (Alex Poythress, 6.4 points, 4.3 rebounds per game), a center that canshoot from outside (Jordan Mickey, 8.4 points, 5.0 rebounds per game) and a perimeter 4 like Mindaugas Kuzminskas (4.2 points per game, 35.7 percent shooting from three). The small forward is Mateusz Ponitka, in his third season in St. Petersburg, a multipurpose player who grabs 4.9 rebounds per game, dishes 3.2 assists per game and averages 5.4 points. Among the Russian players stand out Dmitry Kulagin, a shooter, who missed the last two games, and forwardAndrey Zubkov, averaging 4.8 points per game and shooting 42.1 percent from three.

GAME NOTES – Sergio Rodriguez has scored 796 points for Olimpia, he is four points shy of 800. Shavon Shields has had at least one steal and one three in nine of the 10 games that he’s played. At least one three overall in 14 of his last 15 appearances. He has made his last 10 free throws attempted. Gigi Datome has played in Istanbul his 250th game. He was the 26th player to reach that milestone and the first Italian player to do so. Datome has scored 2.155 points during his EuroLeague career. The Italian leading scorer, Gianluca Basile, is just eight points away.