White lions entered the fins-16 of the Belov League
Last weekend Shukhov's basketball players held in Veliky Novgorod, where they played two victorious matches. This allowed them to enter the Belova League-16 for the second year in a row.
The team of the White Lions supporting university played a season in the prestigious league of the Student Basketball Association - the VTB Student League. It plays the 16 best student basketball teams in the country. According to its results, the Shukhov team went to the second stage of the championship - the Belov League. It is named after the legendary Soviet and Russian player and coach Sergey Belov.
Belov League- the final tournament with the participation of the 64 best teams. They play it in the playoff format: after each match, the losing team is eliminated from the competition. The winner of the league gets the right to represent the country at the international level - European championships in basketball among students and European student games.
"White Lions" within the framework of the league left for two matches in Veliky Novgorod. In the first of them met with the team of the Novgorod State University. Having beaten her, Shukhov team passed on to the next match. Their rival was the Moscow Energy Institute. The game was difficult:
“We lost first: in the first quarter it was minus 11,” recalls team coach Igor Savkin. - Then razed and the third quarter started with an equal score. In the fourth great played and won - 83:70. As always, our team captain Vladislav Bobrovskikh, Dmitry Lissitsky played well. Scored 28 and 27 points, respectively. The whole team, of course, showed character, because in the beginning they lost and it was hard. Whether the excitement is to blame, or the fear of stumbling was.
We are already in the second year in the last-16. Prior to this, the 32nd did not advance. This is considered super, because 800 teams play in the leagues of the ASB, and we are among the 16 best. ”
What next? Now the last-16 will be divided into 4 groups of 4 teams, each of which will be followed by only one winner. So far, there are two known rivals in the White Lions subgroup - MGAFK (Malakhovka) and the Far Eastern Academy of Physical Education (Khabarovsk). All of them are representatives of physical education academies, and therefore for the students of BSTU named after V.G. Shukhov hard to speak out against such athletes:
“This year it’s hard to compete with them by the fact that the bench has shortened, some players have left. And I just lack two or three people. We often have games with strong rivals. We even nearly beat MSU last year, we scored, but we didn’t have enough benches. At the end of the match, the players are tired. At first they came out on an equal footing, but they have 10 equal players, and we have 6. And if there is also an injury? ”, Igor Savkin comments.
The last rival of the Shukhov subgroup will be known in the next two weeks. At the same time, the dates of matches will be announced.