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How many teams are left in the ncaa basketball tournament
Final Four 2022: Ranking the 4 remaining teams in the NCAA Tournament from Duke to Villanova
Upon glancing at the NCAA Tournament bracket the men’s basketball committee had composed on Selection Sunday night, it was easy to see that chaos would follow. But how does one anticipate such a thing? If it were predictable, it wouldn’t be chaos.
So even though it was easy to see that every team on the bracket had significant flaws, it was also true that the teams tasked with beating them were even more impaired. So how would anyone win?
Well, they play games, and someone has to advance.
So away went Kentucky, Tennessee and Auburn, and that was just the SEC. And No. 1 seed Baylor fell to a resurgent North Carolina. And soon all of them were followed by No. 1 seeds Gonzaga and Arizona.
It was a series of unexpected results – that was totally expected.
MORE: Tip-times, TV info for Final Four
All of the teams that survived and will travel to New Orleans had their moments of concern. Duke was down five points with 5 minutes left against Michigan State. Villanova’s offense never quite was potent enough to leave behind the Ohio State and Michigan teams the Wildcats defended so ferociously. Providence took Kansas all the way to the tape before finishing a close second. North Carolina blew a 25-point lead against Baylor but prevailed in overtime. Any one of them could have been one of the 64 victims of the tournament’s capriciousness, but all accomplished just enough to instead call themselves the 2022 Final Four.
This is how they rank in terms of ability to win the championship.
1. Duke (32-6)
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Why they will win it: All along, the Blue Devils had every ingredient historically required to win an NCAA basketball championship. The idea of what wins in March is often complicated or overlooked. It was reflected in the sudden presentation of Houston, once past the Sweet 16, as the betting favorite to win the NCAA championship. What the Cougars accomplished in this tournament after losing two of their five top scorers to season-ending injury at mid-season was remarkable, but winning it all without a projected first-round pick, with a leading scorer averaging 13.8 points and shooting 33 percent on 3-pointers, with a team ranking 305th in the country in free throw rate? They were going to tough it out until toughness wasn’t enough, which turned out to be in the Elite Eight against Villanova.
Duke never has had those issues. Elite talent is the primary ingredient to an NCAA championship, and the Devils have five players who are projected as first-round picks. It’s important to have players who can break down a defense. Junior Wendell Moore can take the ball from the wing to the lane and create opportunities as well as anyone, and has averages of 13.5 points and 4.4 assists to show for it. All-American power forward Paulo Banchero, as well, excels in his ability to drive the ball into defenses. And rim protection: Go through NCAA Tournament history, and see how rarely a team with a 6-9 center who doesn’t block shots is in the middle of the lane for the eventual champion. Size matters, and Mark Williams has 16 blocks in four tournament games.
The one area Duke did not have covered, and the primary reason it lost to non-tournament teams Florida State and Virginia, was a high-end point guard. Jeremy Roach was in and out of the lineup, as Krzyzewski tried to work around his limitations as a creator. Roach still is not that. But he has become a weapon, averaging 12.8 points and 51.3 percent shooting by attacking seams in defenses created by defenses overwhelmed by dealing with such players as Moore, Banchero and AJ Griffin. When Mike Krzyzewski committed to using Roach and instructed him to concern himself first with defending the basketball, he added a definition to this team that had been lacking and allowed Moore and freshman power guard Trevor Keels to focus more on what they do best. Duke may not have exactly everything a championship team would want, but it has more of the right qualities than anyone else.
Why they won't: When the Blue Devils were playing that famous/infamous game to conclude the regular season against North Carolina, there were moments during the first half when it was almost inescapable to look at them and wonder: Who is going to beat this team? Well, before two hours had lapsed, the answer became the Tar Heels. They flipped that game by attacking with speed off the bounce and kicking out to open shooters. Duke appears to have addressed that issue and did a magnificent job of mitigating the threat posed by Arkansas guard JD Notae. But part of Duke’s advantage in that matchup was the Razorbacks lineup included fewer high-level threats beyond him. That’s why the coaches aimed so much of their D at Notae. Such teams as Villanova and North Carolina have more players who are capable of big scoring nights, which will create greater stress on a defense that still ranks only No. 45 at KenPom.com.
DECOURCY: Coach K crosses bridge to Final Four one final time
2. Kansas (32-6)
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Why they might win it: They have the sort of NBA-bound talent that is required to be a serious contender. Either or both of wings Ochai Agbaji and Christian Braun will play in the league, and either – or both – could be a first-round pick. Agbaji has accepted the role of star from the first game this season, and Braun lately has been less likely to defer when there’s obviously an opportunity for him to score. Like many other teams in this tournament, they are not elite at the point guard position, but Dajuan Harris understands his physical limitations and generally gets the ball to where it needs to be, and the reemergence of dynamic transfer Remy Martin as a change-of-pace offensive generator is a difficult component for opposing defenses to manage. He can hurt the Jayhawks at times with his shot-selection, but he’s been much better with that during this tournament, save perhaps the first 20 minutes of the Elite Eight game against Miami. Self remains one of the most underrated defensive coaches. He is not one of those who is often cited in such conversations because his schemes aren’t flashy, and because KU is happy to operate at a quick tempo when it suits the roster or the game in question.
Why they won’t: Big man David McCormack is one of the reasons the Jayhawks are here; he was effective throughout the tournament and delivered 15 points in the Elite Eight game against Miami, along with allowing the Hurricanes’ Sam Waardenburg only three shots and serving as a big factor in Waardenburg’s foul trouble. But McCormack has been an inconsistent player, and that rarely is tolerated at the Final Four level. If he’s matched in a title game against Duke’s Mark Williams, can he be a significant factor? The point guard dynamic will be a problem until it is not. If someone such as Villanova’s Collin Gillespie puts a defensive lock on Harris, can Martin be counted upon to do more than just juice the offense? He made some defensive errors in the Miami game that ultimately were lost in the one-sided game, but there’ll be less of a disguise for any issue now. Here’s another thing: It took Kansas until the second half against Miami to make its first 3-point shot. That’s not a one-game thing. The Jayhawks are 285th in 3-point percentage, 283rd in 3-point usage. If a team can limit Agbaji’s quality 3-point looks, KU might have trouble generating the necessary offense to win a close game.
DECOURCY: Kansas gets shot at title it missed out on in 2020
3. North Carolina (28-9)
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Why they might win it: The Tar Heels certainly have a recipe to defeat their semifinal opponent, the rival Duke Blue Devils. They went into Cameron Indoor Stadium on the final day of the regular season and, with the sort of desperation only a team on the NCAA Tournament bubble can understand, blew Duke off the court in the final 11 minutes of a 94-81 win. Their small-guard combination of Caleb Love and R.J. Davis can cause problems for the opposition because each has great quickness and is a high-end 3-point shooter. It will be a different challenge than anything Duke, for all its success, has faced in this NCAA Tournament – although obviously not a new one from what they’ve faced before. But even if the players are the same, they aren’t playing the same. There is an elevated feeling of confidence, which led Love to a career-best 30 points in the Sweet 16, and Davis to lay siege to the Duke lane and set up stretch-4 Brady Manek for open 3-pointers. In the middle of all this is long, bouncy center Armando Bacot, who excels at rebounding and finishing around the rim.
Why they won’t: It’s still not clear Carolina defends at an elite level, although they have turned in some excellent performances of late. They weren’t required to stop an exceptional offense in the Sweet 16 or Elite Eight, although they did shut down the young Baylor Bears in the second round. They do not disrupt the ball; they are 349th out of 358 teams at forcing turnovers, according to KenPom.com. It feels like a squad with bigger, more dynamic wings to attack the lane – like Duke or Kansas -- can cause problems for the Carolina perimeter. A defense that can shut down the Heels’ perimeter attack might afford to go one-on-one against Bacot in the post. He was 9-of-10 for 19 points against Virginia Tech in the ACC Tournament, but the rest of the Heels were 3-of-26 from 3-point range. Carolina is talented, but who is the player that can rise above the rest when the national title is at stake?
DECOURCY: Davis guides UNC to Final Four in up-and-down debut season
4. Villanova (30-7)
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Why they might win it: Coach Jay Wright has called Collin Gillespie the best leader he’s had in his program, and this is the guy who coached Ryan Arcidiacono and Jalen Brunson. So maybe after he’s finished playing professional basketball, Gillespie will be President of the United States. The Wildcats are an absolute chore to guard, freeing shooters with a variety of uncommon moves and screens and also by spreading the court and empowering ballhandlers, particularly Gillespie, to back down defenders and either draw in to defenders for kick-outs to open shooters or to score on postups or turnaround jumpers. There is an astonishing degree of physical and mental toughness in this team. It was there across 80 minutes of basketball in two Big East games against Providence and especially in the Elite Eight game victory against Houston, which the officials allowed to devolve into an MMA fight. They will not back away from any competition.
Why they won’t: It starts with the injury to Justin Moore, who tore his achilles tendon late in the Elite Eight win over Houston and will not be able to compete. He averages 14.8 points on a team that is only 150th in scoring offense. The Wildcats don’t have an obvious replacement. Even at full strength, they’re just not big enough. They’ve won the title before with smaller teams than the average champ; listed at 6-9 as center for the 2018 championship Wildcats, Omari Spellman was the shortest tallest regular of any championship team in the past 30-plus years. But he was surrounded by elite talents such as Sporting News Player of the Year Jalen Brunson, future Phoenix Suns wing Mikal Bridges and current Sacramento Kings guard Donte DiVencenzo. This is not that Villanova team. There is a reason the tempo for the Wildcats has slowed to 345th in Division I, compared to 150th with the 2018 champions and 274th with the 2016 winners. Wright wants his teams to be precise on offense, because the ability to execute the constant screening and motion to generate high-quality shots for high-quality shooters is why Villanova has reached its third Final Four since 2016. But the pieces aren’t as exceptional now. The Wildcats only are 102nd in effective field goal percentage. So although they are among the better defensive teams in the country, they can’t compensate as well for the fact they are not built to protect the rim. They rank 264th in block rate; no team outside the top 200 has won the title in the past 20 years, most were in the top 50 and three (03 Syracuse, 04 UConn and 12 Kentucky) were No. 1.
BENDER: Villanova survives slugfest with Houston
2022 NCAA Tournament bracket: Evaluating the Final Four teams as March Madness heads to New Orleans
The Final Four matchups are set with Duke vs. North Carolina and Kansas vs. Villanova meeting in Saturday's semifinals
By David Cobb
• 5 min read
USATSI
The field for the 2022 Final Four is set, and after starting at 68 teams less than three weeks ago, there's only one No. 1 seed remaining who will be making the trip to New Orleans. But there will be plenty of college basketball royalty represented when the action tips off Saturday from the Caesars Superdome as Kansas, Villanova, Duke and North Carolina compete for the national title.
First up on Saturday will be the game between the No. 1 seed Jayhawks and No. 2 seed Wildcats at 6:09 p.m. on TBS. Then, after that one concludes, No. 2 seed Duke will take on No. 8 seed North Carolina.
With legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski aiming for his sixth national title before retiring at season's end, the Blue Devils figure to be a big story. Despite being more reliant on freshmen than any of the remaining squads, Duke is playing its best basketball of the season, which gives Coach K a great shot to go out on top. First, though, the Blue Devils will have to get past the Tar Heels after their biggest rival handed them a 94-81 defeat in Coach K's final home game on March 5.
The 2022 NCAA Tournament has taught us to expect the unexpected this time of year, and a Final Four with this combination of teams is sure to deliver some drama before a champion is crowned on April 4.
Here is the early look at what's ahead for the Final Four.
(2) Villanova vs. (1) Kansas
Date: Saturday, April 2 | Time: 6:09 p.m. Location: Caesars Superdome in New Orleans TV: TBS | Streaming: March Madness Live
About the Wildcats -- Villanova never dropped out of the AP Top 25 this season, but the Wildcats did fade to No. 23 in December after a 7-4 start. With losses against UCLA, Purdue and Baylor during non conference play and a lone marquee victory over Tennessee, it seemed like these Wildcats might merely be good instead of great. But over the second half of the season, coach Jay Wright's veteran squad evolved into a national title contender by doing all the little things right. The Wildcats shoot a national best 83% from the free-throw line and commit just 9.9 turnovers per game. Those attributes and a stifling defense were on display in a 50-44 Elite Eight win over Houston in which Villanova shot just 28. 8% from the floor but hit 15 of 15 free throws. The Wildcats are not a deep team and could be especially lean in the Final Four after starting shooting guard Justin Moore left the Houston game with an injury. Key reserve guard Jordan Longino is also out due to injury. But Villanova still has veteran stars Collin Gillespie and Jermaine Samuels. Having won 14 of their past 15 games, the Wildcats will be a tough out even with a thin rotation.
About the Jayhawks -- Kansas never left the top 10 during a bounce-back season following the relative disappointment of a 2020-21 campaign that ended in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The Jayhawks split the Big 12 regular season title with defending national champion Baylor and then dashed to a Big 12 Tournament title to enter the Big Dance with momentum. Victories over Texas Southern, Creighton, Providence and Miami sent KU to the Final Four from the Midwest Region as the last No. 1 seed standing. Kansas trailed Miami 35-29 at halftime of its Elite Eight matchup but outscored the Hurricanes 47-15 in the second half to make a statement entering New Orleans. With Arizona State transfer Remy Martin beginning to reach his potential at point guard and senior wing Ochai Agbaji enjoying a renaissance season, the Jayhawks are strong in the back court. Their cast of role players, led by dynamic forwards Christian Braun and Jalen Wilson, is deep as well.
(8) North Carolina vs. (2) Duke
Date: Saturday, April 2 | Time: 8:49 p.m. Location: Caesars Superdome in New Orleans TV: TBS | Streaming: March Madness Live
About the Tar Heels -- When legendary North Carolina coach Roy Williams announced on April 1 last year that he was retiring immediately, it meant this was going to be a transition season for the Tar Heels. In the end, however, UNC's 2021-22 campaign will end in a familiar setting as the program makes its 21st Final Four appearance under first-year coach Hubert Davis. It was unclear as recently as mid-February whether North Carolina would even make the NCAA Tournament after it lost at home to Pittsburgh on Feb. 16 while on the bubble. But UNC rallied down the stretch with five straight victories to close the regular season, including a 94-81 win at Duke on March 5. The Tar Heels are thriving offensively with a lean rotation with stars such as sophomore guard Caleb Love, junior center Armando Bacot and graduate transfer forward Brady Manek each bringing different scoring specialties to the table. Davis may be a first-time head coach navigating his first season leading the program, but after a decade under Williams and a storied playing career of his own, he's got his squad playing its best basketball at the right time.
About the Blue Devils -- Duke's final season under legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski started with a bang as the Blue Devils knocked off Kentucky in a top-10 showdown to open the season. After also beating Gonzaga, the Blue Devils briefly rose to No. 1 and enjoyed a mostly smooth ride through ACC play until the end. Then, in Coach K's final home game, the Blue Devils lost 94-81 against arch rival North Carolina and squandered the chance to send Krzyzewski out with a regular season sweep of the program's nearby nemesis. A week later, an 82-67 loss to Virginia Tech in the ACC Tournament title game sent the Blue Devils into the Big Dance without much momentum. But Duke's young team has grown up in a hurry with sophomores Jeremy Roach and Mark Williams playing key roles to compliment freshman phenoms AJ Griffin and Paolo Banchero. In victories over Texas Tech and Arkansas during the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight, Duke turned in sterling offensive performances. So far in this tournament, Krzyzewski has reached 1,200 career victories, 100 career NCAA Tournament victories and passed UCLA legend John Wooden for most Final Four appearances by a coach with 13. Now the only question is whether Duke can get Krzyzewski a sixth national title.
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This season, 8 Russians play in the NCAA. How are they? - The Interception - Blogs
Editor's Note: You are reading the user blog Interception, which talks about European basketball. Don't forget that pluses are still the best way to thank the author.
Before the start of last season, I wrote this text. Then I talked to almost all the Russians who were preparing to compete in the NCAA - there were 11 of them at that time - and tried to understand why Russian youth began to leave more massively for American universities. There have never been such a number of Russians in the NCAA.
A year and a half has passed since then, and half of the guys have parted ways: Konstantin Dotsenko is now playing in the Loko farm club, Zakhar Vedischev plays at the base of Krasnodar, Mark Tikhonenko signed a contract with Astana, Andre Toure recently played in Maykop in the second Super League, and Samson Ruzhentsev moved to the Serbian "Mega".
But some remained in America. They were joined by a few more guys who either just left Russia or got into the NCAA from American schools or the NJCAA. In this text, I will talk about all the Russians who play in the first division of the main student league in the world. If last season I wanted to explain why exactly they are leaving, now I have focused on their career.
If you prefer reading, then below is a large text with comments from the players themselves; but this time you have the opportunity not only to read, but also to watch a video about all of our in the NCAA. Inside is my story and a video interview with the guys.
If you watch a YouTube video, don't forget to thumbs up and leave a comment. This will help promote the channel. Subscribe if you love Russian basketball and want to know more about it.
And now - the promised text about our guys in America.
What is the NCAA
The NCAA, or NCDA, is the National Collegiate Athletic Association in the United States and Canada. It includes almost 1300 schools, colleges, universities and other educational institutions. The teams of these universities are represented not only in basketball - the NCAA also has competitions in American football, wrestling, fencing, bowling, softball, gymnastics, tennis and God knows what else.
But basketball is a very popular sport in the association. Both guys and girls have three divisions, which are ranked by strength. This text is only about those Russians who compete in the first, strongest, division.
The NCAA has a playoff called March Madness. When knockout games start, the whole country switches from professionals to students. Although during the season, the teams also have enough attention from fans: the clubs play in large and good arenas, many people come to the matches, the games are shown on television, and sometimes on national television. There are even universities whose fans spend the night in front of the arena in the hope of having time to buy a ticket.
So the NCAA is a really serious tournament, albeit a student one.
How many Russians are there
I have spent an hour and a half of my life checking the composition of all the colleges that are represented in the first division. There are 358 of them. I broke my eyes, learned about the existence of several countries and even about the presence of basketball in these countries, but still I counted all the Russians.
I got eight people, and now we will get to know them better. The sequence on my list doesn't mean anything, it's just that way because I talked to the guys in that order.
I hope I haven't missed anyone. Please write in the comments if you know someone whom I have overlooked.
Evdokimov is the newest member of the NCAA Division I. He joined the Charleston Cougars - the name of the team of the University of Charleston from South Carolina - in early December last year.
This university belongs to mid-major. In the American system, there is a gradation of universities by strength - from low-major to high-major. Mid-major is the middle level. Most Russian guys perform at universities that fall into this category.
Before moving to the USA, Nikita played for the youth team of Lokomotiv-Kuban and for the national team. Last summer, the defender represented the Russian under-20 team at the Euro Challenger, although he himself was only 18.
Evdokimov has an interesting story about how he fell in love with basketball. In fact, it is strange that he did not go to handball, because his dad is the famous Russian handball player Yegor Evdokimov. Six-time champion of Russia, champion of Spain, champion of Belarus, champion of Ukraine, participant of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. At the dawn of his career, Yegor Viktorovich played in his homeland, in the Chelyabinsk region, the city of Snezhinsk. Nikita was born there.
- I fell in love with basketball when I was 9 or 10 years old. My cousin and grandmother and I went on vacation to the Crimea. There was a playground where I constantly ran and played. Grandma suggested trying to sign up for basketball. And before that, I didn’t consider basketball as a sport at all ... But I went to a training session and instantly fell in love. Didn't miss it at all. Then Lokomotiv saw me at the Russian Championship. Together with a team from my city, from Chekhov, we took fourth place, and everyone was very surprised. I was seen by coach Petar Marinkovic, who called me to Loko, ”recalls Evdokimov.
He says that he could have been in the red-green system even earlier. He was invited to the Yug-Basket camp - this is a camp organized by the club and within which it looks for players in its youth system - but then Evdokimov was with relatives in the United States and could not come.
He ended up in the Loko system in 2017. True, Evdokimov says that, even while playing for Krasnodar, he often thought that he actually wanted to try his hand at American basketball. He has relatives living in the USA, he has been there more than once, and when the chance to move to the university appeared, he did not hesitate for a long time.
Evdokimov learned about the university's interest in him in advance, so he spent the summer with benefit: he trained individually with personal trainers in Moscow and Cyprus, where his father plays handball. There, the defender, at the request of the university coach, worked hard on three-pointers and performed at least 500 long-range shots a day.
Evdokimov will be coached at the College of Charleston by Pat Kelsey, a strong specialist who is widely known in college basketball. He once worked with Jeff Teague and Chris Paul.
Alex is not short for Alexander, but his passport name. He was not born in Russia, but in Canada, his parents went there to give birth to Alex. In this country, he lived the first year of his life, after which he left for Moscow. In memory of Canada, Alex has citizenship (he has a double one).
But he started playing basketball in Russia.
— I started playing basketball at Gloria when I was 10-11 years old. People came to my school - and I studied at an ordinary secondary school - who were looking for young guys who were ready to play basketball. They came into my class, saw that I was tall, did a couple of tests, asked me different questions and invited me to practice. I studied at Gloria for a long time, then I got into the MBA Junior Junior League, from there I was taken to the Super League. I played there for literally a year, and after graduating from high school I decided that it would be wise to go to the United States. I contacted Skryagin (Alexander Skryagin, ProFuturo Sports, - note "Interception"), because he was the only person who knows more about moving to the USA than me. We talked to him, I dropped my highlights to him, and he helped me find a school, - says Kotov.
Alex arrived in the US in 2017 and entered the Montverde Academy. This is a very famous program that prepares players for the NCAA. Kotov spent a year in Montverde and won the championship with this team, the result for the season is 35-0. Alex's partners then included, for example, RJ Barrett, who now plays for the New York Knicks in the NBA, and Turkish Efes center Philip Petrushev.
Alex left Montverde not immediately for the NCAA, but for the NJCAA. It is an association of junior colleges and is also often referred to as Juko. A common story for those who feel like they're not ready for the NCAA yet, but want to play hard and improve. Kotov spent two years in this association, after which he moved to the NCAA, to the Illinois State Redbirds team. This is also a representative university of the mid-major category.
Alex has six months left to study at the university, but he can play in the team for another two and a half years. This happened because the players have the right to use the redshirt option. In fact, this is the right of the player to extend his career at the university, even if he has already graduated from the university. Plus, there's also the "cancellation" of the season due to the coronavirus (this happened last year), which also doesn't count, as well as the "cancellation" of the season due to injury (this happened to Alex in his second year in the NJCAA).
In general, these rules are very complicated.
- Due to an injury in my second year at the NJCAA, I opted to save the year. That's plus one season. In addition, this year I had a lot of misunderstandings with the coach, it all started last year. I thought that it would be possible to influence it somehow, to establish relations with him in the summer, but it turned out to be much more difficult than I thought. Therefore, after a huge number of meetings, we came to the conclusion that this year it would be easier for me to also take the option to save the year. So this year I'm graduating from university, getting an education, but I still have, roughly speaking, two seasons to play in the NCAA, - says Kotov.
Lakhin is the only Russian who represents a high-major university. This means that the university where Vitya plays often goes to the "March Madness" and has a tangible chance of winning the NCAA.
And the story of Lakhin began in Anapa. The parents wanted to send their sons - Vitya and his brother Vasya - to some kind of team sport so that they would play together. And chose volleyball. But because of the coach, they did not last long in the volleyball section and eventually went to basketball.
Lahin started in fourth grade but quickly rose to the city team. And in the Krasnodar Territory, if you play for the city team, then you are in full view of the Lokomotiv scouts. Vitya did not play Loko on a permanent basis, but by the 7-8th grade he was regularly on the team to participate in the Russian championships. The Railroaders took him as a reinforcement player - this is a common practice in children's competitions.
Further - a matter of chance. Loko juniors played in the final stage of the Russian championship and met CSKA twice - in the group stage and in the semi-finals. Lakhin gave two good games and ... received an invitation from the "soldiers".
At first he did not think of moving anywhere and stayed to finish the season in the south. But summer came, and he still went to see it. He was offered to stay after the first practice. Vitya talked to his parents and a month later he arrived at CSKA.
- The first season was probably the most emotional, full of some moments, memories. Because my brother and I arrived for the first time in a big city. On the one hand, this is a great freedom, because there are no parents nearby, but, on the other hand, this is also a great responsibility. Because you have never done the things that your parents did for you before, like laundry, cleaning, all sorts of small things. Even a waste of money: you never thought about it before, you were given - you spent it. And here you have money, and you know that if you spend everything, then at the end of the month you won’t have any left, ”recalls Vitya.
Lakhin reached the final stage of the youth Euroleague with CSKA and spent a pretty good season overall. Alexey Zhukov, the head coach of the “army” CYBL, left to work as an assistant in Nizhny Novgorod, and Maxim Sharafan came to CSKA from Lokomotiv. He worked with Vitya for three years, and during this time Lakhin managed to understand that he wants to play in Russia only at the highest level - in CSKA - and if it doesn’t work out, then it’s better to leave.
- I realized that it would be very difficult for me to get into the base. This is a top club with the highest goals, and as a young player I need to be not even the same as everyone else, but better, because I have no experience. It was necessary here and now to show some level and bring results. Let's be realistic, there were no players who can immediately enter the CSKA system and show something like that for a long time. Probably the Swede was the last one. I realized that I can’t do that, and since my dream is to be in the NBA, I decided to move closer to this league, this Wednesday, to America. That's why I'm here, - says Vitya.
But not everything was so simple. Back in Russia, Lakhin managed to get injured. He fell in the game moment, and his knee hurt. The medical staff did not suspect anything, and Vitya continued to train. The state of health worsened, but then the pandemic came, everyone went into self-isolation, and the center just went home. The knee was still swollen, but the pain was slowly receding. Vitya did not train and therefore did not feel any signs of deterioration. He already knew that he was leaving for America, and just waited for all the permits.
The injury happened in February and the departure was due in September. In the summer, Lakhin himself did an MRI, which showed that he had ... a torn meniscus. He took the results of the examination to the surgeon who scheduled the operation. Vitya went for it and began to recover in Russia, and he came to the USA with an already operated knee.
Everything should have been fine, but when he started running, the pain returned. Lakhin did another MRI, and it showed that the same meniscus was completely torn. The doctors said that it would take six months to recover. Therefore, Vitya simply missed his first season in the NCAA.
— All this time I didn't train, but I was always with the team: in scouting, in the locker room, in training. All lessons were online, and we lived in an apartment with the team. So that year helped me a lot, because even though I didn’t play, I was in the system and I knew the guys. It was my year of adaptation - to a new culture, to people, to new faces, to food. I had the same feeling as when I came from a small town to Moscow. You leave Russia for any other country - even to America, even to Italy, even to Spain - and you go through the same thing, Lakhin believes.
He adds that the Cincinnati had a new head coach at the end of last season and it was a difficult moment. A new specialist was appointed the day before Lakhin's departure to Russia, when he did not yet understand whether he would remain in the team for the next season or not. Whether to leave it, decided the new head coach. But in the end, the center managed to meet with him before departure and find a common language. The coach wanted to protect the Russians in the squad.
During the summer Vitya worked in the USA on his body and improved his skills. The season began in October, and in December, Lahin was the best freshman of the week in his conference. By the way, he has a situation similar to Alex: academically, Lahin is a sophomore, but he is considered a rookie in the team.
Andrey Savrasov, Georgia Southern Eagles
2021/22 stats: 14 games, 23.7 minutes average
11.9 points (51.5% 2-point, 30% 3-point, 73.1% free throws), 6 rebounds, 1.1 assists, 0.4 block shots, 0.9 interceptions, 1 loss Andrey's first coach is a well-known Russian specialist Oleg Aktsipetrov.
— I remember that at first I had very different hobbies: football, basketball, taekwondo… But after the first two or three years of training, I realized that basketball is really mine, that I want to do just that. Slowly, I began to play for the sports school of the Admiralteisky district, for the Zenit Junior Junior League, played for the Russian national team U16, U18. We went to different tournaments, and somewhere the scouts saw my game and invited me to the USA, says Savrasov.
Andrey moved to America three years ago - in January 2019of the year. Now he is finishing his third year at the university, in the American education system it is possible to start studying in the middle of the academic year and, accordingly, then graduate also in the middle of the academic year.
Savrasov managed to play for the Texas Tech team, where he spent a year and a half. The first six months he did not play, he spent in redshirt mode - he trained, worked on his body, was with the team, but did not play for it. But the next season already played in the status of a freshman, that is, a freshman.
Andrei didn't get much playing time, but he still wanted to stay at the university. It was a high-major, and Savrasov wanted to prove that he deserved another role.
But then I talked to the head coach, and together they decided that it would be better to change the university in order to continue their career. The coach even helped find a new team, and that's how Savrasov ended up in Georgia, in the Georgia Southern Eagles team. This is a mid-major university.
Now in his second year with the new team, he is in the starting five and generally has a good role on the court. In theory, Andrei can play for the university for another two years, although he graduates from the university in a year.
Vladislav Goldin, Florida Atlantic Owls
2021/22 stats: 14 games, 16.5 minutes average
5.7 points (47.9% 2-pointers, no 3-pointers, 52.2% free throws), 5.5 rebounds, 0.4 assists, 0.6 block shots, 0.4 interceptions, 1.3 losses He played with his 2001, but at some point the team just fell apart and disappeared.
Goldin was sent to play by the year 2000, and the coach of this team turned out to be familiar with the coach of CSKA-DYuBL. Vlad and another guy were offered to the "soldiers" - just to look at them. But the screening went well, and after one of the training sessions, Vlad was offered to move to Moscow. New school, new surroundings, heavy loads, training twice a day - Vlad says that the first six months in the capital were the most difficult time in his life.
- At that time, I probably did not quite understand where I was moving and how much it changed. To be honest, I didn't even really know what DUBL was. Wasn't very knowledgeable. Youth League, Junior Team, Superleague… I knew the tournaments where we played: first the Southern Federal District, then the Russian Championship. When I found out that I was already in Moscow and had to go to the CYBL team for a tryout, I even got scared. But they left me, and I trained at CSKA for another four years. Then he played for the Russian national team U18 and U19, after which he received an offer to try himself in America. I decided to take a chance and moved there to the Prep school,” says Goldin.
Prep school is short for preparatory school. In essence, this is an opportunity to play basketball in the USA before going to university.
In October 2019, Vlad entered Patnam School in Connecticut. This is a small private school about an hour from Boston. Together with the team, Goldin became the champion of America in the championship among preparatory schools.
After that, Vlad was called to Texas, to the Texas Tech team - to the same team where Andrey Savrasov played for a year and a half. Goldin saw that this was a big and serious high-major team, saw the conditions for training and accepted their invitation without hesitation.
— In Texas, things are a little different. The way we played there was not like the way I played before, so the first experience was difficult. And then the head coach left us, replacing TexasTech with Texas. Most of the coaching staff left with him, and our team did not quite understand what to do. Only the assistant coach remained with us. And in the end, I decided to move to another team, to Florida, - say Goldin.
Due to the coronavirus, Vlad has the same situation as most student athletes: academically he is a sophomore, but the last sports season did not count, so he is a freshman in the team. Goldin has three years left to study, and he can play four more.
He himself says that his current team plays more European basketball, so he feels great there.
Alexander Glushkov, Appalachian State Mountaineers
2021/22 stats: 7 games, 4.7 minutes average
2 points (60% 2-pointers, 0% 3-pointers, 33.3% free throws), 1 .1 rebounds, no assists, 0.1 blocks, 0.1 steals, no losses
Born in Vladivostok, Glushkov started playing basketball at the age of 13 when he went to summer camp. I came home and told my father: "I want to play basketball." Parents sent Sasha to the section.
Glushkov's first coach is Eduard Sushko. After a year of working with him, Sasha was invited to the Spartak-Primorye system. He played in the Junior Junior League for a year, after which the entire management of the team and almost the entire squad moved to the PSC Sakhalin. At the same time, the base of the club remained in Vladivostok. Glushkov spent a year in the new club, after which he received an invitation from Moscow, from the IBA. His coach Alexander Antipov invited him.
And then it was a matter of chance, and a year later Sasha was already flying to the USA to study at school.
— I came to Moscow and played there for a year. When we were preparing for the Summer Spartakiad in Krasnaya Pakhra at the Trinta base, a coach from the USA arrived there. He was familiar with Alexander Antipov, because before that our guy had already played at the same school. He came just to relax, but he also wanted to look at the players. He probably liked me, and he invited me to school. I took the chance and got into high school. I spent 11-12 classes there, received several offers and decided that I would play in Appalachian State, says Glushkov.
Now Sasha is in his second year, but as you know, last year doesn't count. So Glushkov is considered a “freshman” in the team and can play for the university for another three and a half years, while he has two and a half to study.
When Sasha arrived at the university, he weighed about 90 kg. But now he has noticeably added muscle mass. He began to grow muscles during the last season, but he did the main work in the summer. Due to problems with visas, he could not go home to Russia, and he went to a friend in Houston. There he lived for a month, ate a lot and rocked. As a result, he entered the new season in excellent physical shape. True, the coach still does not really trust him.
Glushkov University is a mid-major who, last year, entered March Madness for the first time in 20 years. Sasha was not released then, but he nevertheless felt the atmosphere of the main student event of the year. Here's what he says about it:
- It was ... unbelievable (unbelievable - approx. "Interception"). Very cool feeling. 64 top teams, all at the highest level. We had two or three hotels, each floor was dedicated to a specific team. I don’t know how much it could be called the same “March Madness”, because, of course, all the measures were taken anyway. We had a quarantine, we had to be tested every day. And so everything was at the highest level,” recalls Glushkov.
David has probably the most atypical fate among all our guys who now play in the first division of the NCAA.
Didenko was born in the north, in the city of Yakutsk. He remembers his childhood quite vividly: he says that the city authorities allowed not to go to school at -45 degrees Celsius, and if the thermometer was only -43, you had to pull yourself together, stick yourselves into a thick down jacket and stomp to school.
— I had a healthy down jacket, maybe five centimeters. I walked around like a big bubble. When I was 8 or 9 years old, we had -57 degrees in winter. Very cold. I didn’t leave the house for two days,” Didenko recalls.
In 2010, David ended up in the USA even before he started playing basketball. He was 10. His older sister was leaving for New York to study English, and David just went with her for a month.
While still in Russia, they found him something to do in the USA. On the classifieds website, the family looked at a message from a Russian coach who lived there, his name was Boris Karebin. The coach was needed so that David would not just mess around in the States.
But the boy got so caught up in basketball that he eventually wanted to stay. Parents allowed, and he went to an American school. Karebin trained him in Brighton Beach, this is a Russian-speaking area, so immersion in American culture was gradual.
— I first lived in New York, where I arrived, and then I traveled. Lived in Florida, then studied in Georgia, in Tennessee. I travel a lot around the country - sometimes I live there, sometimes there. Somehow I quickly learned English, apparently because I was still young. Literally in a year. In Russia, I studied English for three classes, but could not learn it. Here I first lived with my sister, she pushed me to talk to people, and somehow everything turned out by itself, - says Didenko.
David spent his first year after school in Juko. Remember the story of Alex Kotov? This is the same league that prepares players who have not yet grown up to the NCAA. But already in the second year, Didenko ended up in the first division, at the University of Georgia.
He is currently a UT Martin Skyhawks player, where UT is the University of Tennessee. Accordingly, David now lives and studies in this state. He has a year and a half left at the university, and he can still play the same amount at the university level.
At the same time, he is 21 years old and automatically enters the NBA draft next year. In mocks - that is, expert predictions - he is not drafted, but he still has to play the whole season, so everything is in his hands.
Last on the list - not by value, but simply because he is the only Russian I could not contact - Pavel Zakharov from California Baptist Lancers.
Zakharov was born in Sør-Varanger, Norway. In Russia, Pasha played for the Zenit youth team and helped CSKA play in the youth Euroleague, and in 2018, after playing for the Russian U18 team at the European Championship, he left for the Montverde Academy. We talked about it a little earlier.
He was considered a four-star recruit. In American sports, when they want to talk about the prospects of a particular player, they talk about him in terms of stars, and four stars is very good. Such an assessment helped him get into the Gonzaga College in the NCAA - this is one of the top programs, which, for example, reached the NCAA finals last season, having suffered its first loss of the season in this very final. Pasha then did not go to the parquet. A year before, the team did not get into the "March Madness" only because the championship was stopped due to a pandemic.
Zakharov spent two seasons at this university and moved to the California Baptist Lancers in the summer of 2021. Most likely due to playing time, because, obviously, it was much more difficult to get it in Gonzaga. But even at the new university, he still has an average of 10 minutes on the floor and one and a half rebounds. By the way, about playing on the shields: the height of the Russian center is 213 centimeters, in America these guys are called seven-footers.
This is almost all I know about Pavel Zakharov.
It seems that the Russians in the first division of the NCAA are over. If you know someone else that I forgot, please write in the comments.
Thank you for your attention! I will be glad if you share the text or video with your friends who are interested in young Russian players. Well, thumbs up, comments, subscriptions to YouTube - everything is traditional.
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Photo: official websites of clubs, personal archives of players; twitter.com; instagram.com; cskabasket.com
“In Russia, you go out the door and you have to start pushing” :: Basketball :: RBC Sport
Vadim Fedotov, former NCAA and German national basketball player, and now the general director of the Russian and Ukrainian representative offices of Groupon, tells Yuri Dudyu how collegiate basketball in America works.
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Photo: AP
Almost 25 years ago, Vadim Fedotov moved with his parents from St. Petersburg to Germany. 12 years ago, he played center for the German youth basketball team. 10 years ago, he found himself in the NCAA as part of the Buffalo varsity team.
Now Fedotov is 30 and has been living in Moscow for several years. First, he worked as a department director in a German consulting company, then he became a sales director, and after some time - the general director of the Russian and Ukrainian offices of Groupon. In business terms, Groupon is an international behemoth with offices in 48 countries and an annual turnover of several billion dollars. Speaking in the language of a person, Groupon is the very site where, with huge discounts, you are offered to buy more or less everything in the world - from a tent with mosquito nets to the Karelian Around the World excursion tour.
Fedotov, a tall (205 cm) young man in a green sweatshirt and sneakers, gives an interview in his office on Alexander Solzhenitsyn Street. In Russian, he speaks with an accent, but quickly, a lot and on the topic.
adv.rbc.ru
– 17-year-old basketball players from Khimki, Samara and Vladivostok will read this interview most attentively. Tell them in detail: what do you need to do to get into varsity basketball?
– From the age of 6 I lived in Germany, from the age of 8 I played basketball three times a week. By the age of 16, I realized that it was very interesting for me, I would like to do it more seriously, and I entered a sports school. Six months later, the coach of the German U-18 national team came to me - he was assembling a team for the qualifying games for the European Championship. The qualifying tournament was held in Latvia, Andris Biedrins played against me, who then played in the NBA for 11 years. This tournament had NBA scouts looking for future stars. I never thought I had a chance in the NBA. But given how America feels about basketball, including at the college level, I had a very strong desire to play there.
A year later, Germany played friendly matches against the US team. These games are not only full of scouts - the video of these games is then available to all coaches of university teams. We played with the Americans four times, that is, firstly, I got a lot of experience, and secondly, I got on the radar of colleges. And then they started sending me offers.
I must say that the colleges have a very well built system of motivation for potential players. For example, a proposal from my college. At first they say that you will have a crazy, and most importantly, free education. As many know, about 80 percent of US students graduate with $60,000 or more in debt, which they pay off over 10 to 20 years. Then they say that there are 27,000 students on campus, this is the largest university in the state of New York, that it is in the ranking of the best research universities in the United States, with the strongest business school. You smile and ask: “Is Buffalo cold?” They answer: not much colder than in Moscow. This does not calm you down, but the hint is clear: do not think about the weather, you will be in the hall all winter anyway. They also talk about how big their stadium is - in the case of Buffalo, this is 10 thousand spectators. You are used to playing in Germany for 700-800 spectators, but here it is 15 times more. In addition, you will be on the federal channel, in computer games, and everyone will know your name. Well, in general, half of the entire university every Friday will be waiting for you and your partners to run out of the tunnel. All in all, it all sounded very interesting.
At the same time, I was offered to become a professional in Germany. By the rules, if you were already a professional, you can't play for the varsity team. All clubs in Europe know this. So at the age of 17 or 18, when you are still in school, but you are already starting to think about college, they offer the following: we will pay you now so that after graduation you will start playing for us. A professional team from the German top league approached me: we are ready to give you so many tens of thousands of euros, you don’t even need to play; and when you finish your studies, you will compete for us, and we will give much more. When a student is offered such money and such prospects, it is hard to refuse. I was lucky that there were people around who went through all this. They said, “Better give up for now. Otherwise, you will be attached to them and are guaranteed to lose your education, which costs up to 200-250 thousand dollars. You can accept such an offer later.” And I refused.
Half a year later, I was severely injured. I tore five knee ligaments at once - that is, literally all the ligaments that are there, in medicine this is called an unhappy quintet. People from the German team, which made a guaranteed offer, came to me every week for training before the injury. After the injury, they sent a text message: "We wish you all the best." And the college kept its word: come to us, rehab and play for us for four years.
– Have you been treated in the States?
– There were still 8 months left before moving to the USA, so I rehabilitated at home. Germany is considered the main place where knees are treated: even Kobe Bryant regularly flies here to examine them. The doctor who was recommended to me is considered a guru in this matter. “I came up with a new theme,” he said. - When you tear five ligaments, recovery usually takes 9-12 months. But there is a new way. I have already tried it on 300 patients - and after 3 months they began to walk and jump. Of course, they are not athletes, but housewives and office workers, but I am sure that with the right rehabilitation, we will succeed.” I doubted if it was worth it. Just then, the coach of the German national team called me: “In 5 months we have the World Cup. If you do the operation that will put you on your feet in 3 months, you will have time to get into the squad. And then the doctor called again: “If you were my son, I would also advise you to do this operation. ” When a 52-year-old German doctor, a medical guru, says these words to you, you agree.
The essence of the operation: he puts in torn ligaments, initiates growth hormone, and because you don't move your knee at all for a month, they fuse back. This is followed by 2 months of rehabilitation. Everything sounds cool. There is only one problem: when you don’t move your knee for even a week, then with minimal movement it hurts as if it were being beaten with a stick. But I passed it and in three months I was on the site. This caused a great resonance, they wrote about it in the newspapers. Everyone said: “Wunder resultat! Fedotov plays after a crazy injury! Wikipedia has an entry that I am the first athlete who returned to the sport after such an operation and plays regularly. True, there is not enough of some update ...
My first match since my injury. The doctor who performed my operation is present in the stands. Just before the start, he says: “It's great, you can do whatever you want. The only thing that should not be: if someone turns around and hits you with a knee in the knee. 14 minutes of the game pass, the opponent hits me with a knee in the knee, and I tear the ligaments again.
Doctor says: “Let's not experiment anymore. Let's do the usual." I call Buffalo College again: "I broke again." They - already with a little less joy - answer: “Well, ok. We are still waiting for you." I flew to the USA a couple of months after the operation, I was met by a trainer. When we collected our luggage, he led me to the car and walked very fast, almost running. “Coach,” I asked him, already getting into the car. Why were we in such a hurry? Did you run out of parking? "No, I was just checking to see if you could even walk normally."
* * *
What is your main impression of the NCAA?
- The moment I realized it was all worth it was the tournament in Hawaii. The NCAA starts in November and ends in March. Friendly tournaments are organized during student holidays - as a rule, they are held in resorts: Hawaii, Bahamas and other places where there are many tourists and excellent infrastructure. The most famous such tournament is the Rainbow Classic in Hawaii. It was won by Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. Buffalo was invited to the 45th Rainbow Classic - of all the teams that were there, we were considered the most unknown and weakest. We won the first game in overtime by 1 point. The second - with a difference of 2 points. In the third game, we have already confidently won with a difference of 14 points. In the end, we won the tournament. Then it turned out that this was the last tournament, it was closed and the 46th draw was no longer going to be held. I have a photo: I, along with some Hawaiian doll, full of people, and the feeling that you are in history. I went up to my coach and said, “For the last 10 years, I have been playing basketball two or three times a day. All this is for the sake of this day.
- Rookie bullying is part of the NBA and NHL culture. Do they exist in the NCAA?
- They treat freshmen in a peculiar way, but I got over it. In the year I entered, such pranks - in America it's called hazing - were banned after some unpleasant incidents. The usual things remained: after training, you carry dirty clothes for washing, you carry backpacks to the plane, you change food according to certificates and bring it to the team. Well, you are also sitting next to the coach on the bus.
– Is it uncomfortable?
– Well, in the back you can relax and listen to music. And then you listen carefully to a lecture on what else needs to be done to improve your game.
Coach, by the way, in college really replaces the father. This affected me to a lesser extent: I got there at the age of 19 and had already lived without parents before that. The other guys were a couple of years younger than me, had just left the parental home, and the coach had a great influence on them.
In general, playing for college is a constant emotional burden. From the first day you count how many games you have left. If you are a professional, you know that there are several years of career ahead. In college, you can only play for four years, 30 games each year. 3 matches played - 117 left. At the same time, the constant question is: what are you willing to give to the college in exchange for what it invests in you? I didn’t go home for the holidays for three years - I trained. During the summer and winter holidays, the number of training sessions reached three per day. One of them was mandatory, and the other two were optional. The first practice was at 5:30 am. It was optional, but if you didn’t come, you had questions.
– What can the body do at 5.30 am?
- A lot if he goes to bed not at 1 am, but at 9 pm. This is to get you used to relaxing, and not doing stupid things in the evenings. This is also a very important motivational story: when you work so hard, you will do everything on the court to achieve a result. Your thought: “I trained until sunrise, I invested so much in this college, in this t-shirt, I can’t fail. ” So instead of going to the movies the night before your workout and eating burgers, you go to bed. Even despite the fact that you are 20 years old, and around is America with all its possibilities.
What was the most incredible atmosphere you played in the NCAA?
- In Pittsburgh, a stadium for 20 thousand spectators. The fan zone, which is located right next to the site, is called The Zoo. And they behave really like in a zoo. Crazy atmosphere, incredibly interesting. True, we lost without a chance.
They also played in Ohio once. Very hard and equal game. At the end of the match we have "-1", they foul me and I go to the penalty line. The whole room stands up and starts shouting: “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! The logic is this: Fedotov from Russia will be throwing free throws, so we will yell "USA" to him. The first - I get. The second - I also get. And oh-oh-very slowly moving away from the penalty line, turning to the audience and making it clear: your number did not pass today. We won that match, and I hugged everyone, especially the Americans.
Speaking of emotions. I myself am from St. Petersburg, my father played tennis. When I played the first match for the German youth team and listened to the German anthem, I got goosebumps. “Dad, this is weird. I'm Russian, but the German anthem gives me goosebumps. How is this possible?". "Do not worry. It's not because of the anthem. It's because of the recognition - you're in the top 12 in the country, it's very exciting anyway."
* * *
- Whose poster did you have in your room as a child?
- Hakim Olajuwon. 1993 Houston Rockets uniform with 28 team badges around it that you had to memorize and know which division each was in.
Photo AR
He is simply the most beloved player in history. Olajuwon is also a center. 208 cm tall, but how he scored and what he did, no one does to this day.
- Who is the best center in world basketball right now?
- Marc Gasol. I played against him many times in my youth. It was about 10 years ago, when he weighed 135 kg with a height of 210 cm. He played for 5-6 minutes, because it was difficult for him to move around. But when he played, you understood that he does everything. It was clear that he had talent, that he knew how to throw, give passes, defend himself - he was the basketball player with whom everyone wants to play together. He sat on the Barcelona bench for a year, then moved to America, began to take care of himself, lose weight and become what he has become now.
So now the best is Marc Gasol. The near future is Sacramento's DeMarcus Cousins and Detroit's Andre Drummond.
- Are American and European basketball different sports?
– One sport, but different games. If you watch the Clippers - Cavaliers first, and then Panathinaikos - CSKA, there will be a completely different mood. The first is entertainment, speed, athleticism, the second is tactics, correctness, endurance. I'm more suited to European basketball, but I like to watch the NBA more. Well, those who do not know basketball will want to watch the NBA - that is why it is so popular.
NCAA rules are also different from NBA rules. The NCAA still has 35 seconds to attack - if the team is weak, they hold the ball for 28-30 seconds, and this is very bad for the game: less speed, less attacks, less points scored. There are also 330 teams in the first division, and only 50 of them have enough players with a height of more than 205 cm. In the rest - 198-200 cm, they run around the court without a position.
But the NCAA has something else, also very important. In the NBA tomorrow you will be removed, you will move to another city, put on a jersey of another team and forget where you were the day before yesterday. I am a graduate of the University of Buffalo for life, even after 20 years you ask me how they played yesterday, I will name the opponent and the score. I graduated five years ago, I have the Buffalo Bulls app installed, the ESPN ticker and other things that allow me to follow my former team.
* * *
– How much time did you spend studying?
- I came to the US after finishing high school in Germany. The grades were good, I was always interested in studying. I came and said: I'm interested in business, I want to study it. “Listen, the direction of our business is very good, very strong. Come on, will you study geography better?”. "Why geography?". They hinted that the training load would be so high that I might not have enough time to study the business. I went to study geography, but quickly realized that this is not what I would like to do. I was interested in business. I approached the coach: “Can I go into business in the first semester?” "Good. But if we understand that you are not pulling, you will transfer. In the NCAA, if your grades are below a certain level, you are banned from playing, so the coaches are very worried about their studies.
- That is, a loser cannot play?
- No. On a 4-point system, your average grade should be 2. 6-2.8. I entered business school, I had excellent grades, and the coach and I did not raise this issue again.
In general, they do this: you have a minimum number of hours that you must spend at the university. The first two years are easy if you know English well. Basic education: if the guys, as you say, from Khimki or Samara move there, it will be easy for them, because they went through all this at 8-9class. But in the third year it becomes interesting. You choose a direction, serious professors from real business fly to you for classes from other cities, you make real business cases, presentations, developments - you sit at night, but really get high.
We studied from 8 am to 11 am. The training was from 11.30 to 14.30, from 15.00 to 18.00 there were also classes, then again training in the gym. On some days there were also evening courses that started at 8 or 9 pm. Plus, as an athlete in the summer, I could take additional courses.
– Did you receive a scholarship?
- Yes, full-fledged. She covered all tuition fees. All expenses for books, and in America this is a crazy expensive part of education: if you buy used, you can meet 5-6 thousand dollars a year; if new, it can reach 12 thousand. All housing and food expenses. And money for life - just for life, without walking in a big way.
- Your peers at Alba at that moment already had a full contract and received something like 100 thousand euros a year. Did it tempt you?
- A good example, because when I went to America, my partners from the German national team went to Alba. And they said that they earn exactly 100 thousand a year. At that moment I thought: stunned! But I was saved by the fact that even then I understood: I will not be a superstar. When you have four knee injuries, you don't jump as well or run as fast to get to the very top. I understood that I had a ceiling in sports, so my studies were more important for me than my basketball career. Well, in general, in the USA, getting an education and constantly playing, I enjoyed life more than they did with a salary, but sitting on the bench of Alba.
- Where did your third and fourth knee break happen?
- The second operation failed. In conventional surgery, another ligament is taken from your body, folded, and implanted. The bundle turned out to be too short - I immediately began to pull it, and at the end of the first season in Buffalo I tore it. When it happened, all the doctors said, “This is the best thing that could happen to you. Let's fix it and make it all right."
But the fourth injury is like from a bad Hollywood movie. My father - at that time he had never seen me play professional basketball, and had never been to America - in the third year of my studies decided to visit me. He flew to New York, we spent a couple of days there, then went to Buffalo. And now he goes to my workouts, walks around the city with me, goes to the Great Lakes. We walk along the beach, on the way there is a 30 cm stone, from which I descend very slowly, as if I am 90 years old He looks at me: “Why are you walking like that? You have a game tomorrow. " "Training has just ended - we are all very tired." “I’m certainly not an expert, but if the day before the game you can’t descend normally from a height of 30 centimeters, then perhaps your preparation is not entirely correct.”
The next day they put my father in the front row, take pictures, write about him in the newspaper. The father of a foreign player came to college - an event! The second attack, they give me the ball around the three-point line, I throw it - I hit it. The next attack - I throw from the edge, I hit. Everyone is delighted, I get high: my father has arrived, we win, everything works out. The second half begins, right in front of my father, an opponent runs into me, I fall and hear a ligament tear in my knee. And I start cursing - and in English. The father then asked: “Why in English? You know three other languages that the audience would not understand.”
My coach was afraid to approach me, because once I told him: “If I break again, I won’t play again. ” I approached myself: “Coach, don’t worry. I have one year left in college - I will definitely play. After 6 months, he recovered and played for a year.
– So after four knee breaks a person can jump?
- I can still jump. And run too. It's just that if you continue to play with such an injury, then age-related problems with your legs will cover you much earlier - not at 45, but at 35.
* * *
- How popular is the varsity player in the city?
- In the third season, I became the face of the advertising campaign for season passes. I didn't score the most points, I didn't make the most rebounds, I played 25-28 minutes. Yes, I played in the top five, but I was not the best player. However, they chose me as the face of the campaign. The club rented billboards in the city - huge, 30 by 10 meters. One of them was located on the main street of Buffalo, directly opposite the most popular restaurant with the largest terrace in the city. Throughout the summer, if I went there, I always met a couple of people on the terrace who said: "Hmm ... I saw you somewhere." I pointed to the street - there my face was smiling from the poster.
American students are generally interested in Europeans. Probably, popularity was partly connected with this. You always hear, "I'm one quarter Italian" or "I'm half Irish." Or: “Oh, Germany? My dad knows someone there." When you say that you are from Europe, crazy sympathy appears for you. And it appears long before you scored your first ring. And the students, and the waiters, and the police - all positive. People in Buffalo are very proud of their city: if you look, the Buffalo Sabers of the NHL and the Buffalo Bills of the NFL are packed to the stands, even when they play badly - because the audience there is very loyal. So these same people hope that their positive will touch you, you will come to Moscow and in an interview with Sports.ru you will tell what wonderful people are in Buffalo. And you will not lie: everything is so.
What is the most famous player who played with you in the NCAA?
– There are about 50 of those who play in the NBA now. Of those who are known in Russia, DeJuan Blair, he was in San Antonio, and then played for the Samara Wings. I found out about this a couple of years ago when I was sitting in a Moscow restaurant and he walked by.
When I played for Germany against the U.S. junior team, everyone was sure that the future is superstars. When they came out, there was a feeling that everyone had already signed contracts for 120 million dollars. Of the twelve, six ended up in the NBA, but none of them became a superstar - good players, first, second on the bench.
- What is the most unusual job your former teammates have?
- I don't know about everyone. One is VP of Sales at a media agency - they've raised some pretty good money and after Montreal and New York they're opening a new office in Paris. The second went to his father in a PR agency. The third became a grocery store manager. The fourth one works in a bank, very good, but he has been doing this only for the last few months - before that, he had been “looking for himself” for four years, trying to become a professional player, but that was all. Many just teach basketball at school.
Each of us expects a lot from life, but this does not always coincide with reality.
In the summer in America you play not only against other guys from the university, but also against professionals who are returning from Europe for the summer break. They arrive in cool cars, wear a hefty chain around their necks and tell how they earn hundreds of thousands of euros in Europe. Many people envy and think: if I finish college, I will go to them and get rich in the same way. I didn’t think so, because I understood that I have a health limit and I won’t become a great basketball player. And my partners were sure that they would play for another 15 years.
Small problem: most of the time the wages these guys mention are doubled, sometimes tripled.
– So they lie to each other?
- I know the players who played in the Portuguese championship. If they were getting at least $1,800 a month, I would be very surprised. But at the same time, they came in a cool car, just the car was not theirs. I know this because, firstly, some later admitted it themselves. Secondly, when I graduated from college, I was approached by agencies that offered to place me in different clubs. I asked: “What salary can I expect?”. They called the numbers many times less than those that I had heard about. I understood that I didn’t really want to play for that kind of money for 5 years, end my career and turn out to be a 30-year-old trainee in the real world.
– When and how did you realize that you wanted to work in business?
- I started subscribing to The Wall Street Journal after my freshman year. When every morning they brought him to the locker room, the whole team laughed. And then it became clear even to my coach: Fedotov and basketball are, of course, a passion, but this is not for life. Then I asked for an internship, and I was assigned to a company that services hundreds of stadiums in the world, including the main arena of the Australian Open and Wembley Stadium. A publicly traded company with 42,000 employees, headquartered in Buffalo, founded by our college graduate and major sponsor of the basketball team.
It was then that I realized that business was my future.
– You moved to Russia in 2010. What surprised you here in the first place?
- What I really liked: around you here is daily energy, very high and very aggressive. The first time you wake up and immediately spread your elbows - because as soon as you go out the door, you have to start pushing. In Russia, not everything depends on age. In the West, the energy, audacity and aggressiveness of the young is perceived as a sign of disrespect for the elders. In Russia, there is no such thing; here, on the contrary, this is expected of you. I once told my father about my work in a German company: “Dad, they don’t perceive me there, because I’m 24 years old.” “Wait, it's a very short time. By the age of 26, no one will pay attention to your age anymore. And so it happened: at 26 they began to be perceived as an adult. This is understandable: studies there are very long, almost all of my German classmates finished their studies at 28-29years. By that time in Russia, I had already been the general director for three years.
- First NBA draft picks earn their first million in their rookie season. Weaker basketball players do it in a couple of years. Have you already earned your first million?
- This is confidential information. We are a public company and discussion of such issues at the local level is prohibited.
- The pinnacle of a basketball player's career is the NBA champion ring. What is the pinnacle of your career?
- CEO of an international public company.
- You are already a CEO. Has your goal been achieved?
- Our company has offices in 48 countries, I manage two - Russia and Ukraine. My boss manages Europe, that is, 24 countries. He has a boss who manages all 48. The real achievement is if your company is listed on the stock exchange with a turnover of more than a billion dollars, and you work as its manager.
* * *
- At the end I will return to 17-year-old basketball players from Khimki, Samara or Vladivostok. If one of them has two options: go to an American college or sign a contract with CSKA, what would you advise them?
- Depends on the family.
- Suppose the family is not rich. Father receives 30 thousand a month, mother receives 20 thousand.
– Then it will be difficult for me to advise him to go my way. Because this means that he will not be able to support his family for at least 6-8 years. If it does not depend on the financial situation of the family, then an American diploma is valued all over the world, this is understandable.
What the Cougars accomplished in this tournament after losing two of their five top scorers to season-ending injury at mid-season was remarkable, but winning it all without a projected first-round pick, with a leading scorer averaging 13.8 points and shooting 33 percent on 3-pointers, with a team ranking 305th in the country in free throw rate? They were going to tough it out until toughness wasn’t enough, which turned out to be in the Elite Eight against Villanova.
Size matters, and Mark Williams has 16 blocks in four tournament games.
They flipped that game by attacking with speed off the bounce and kicking out to open shooters. Duke appears to have addressed that issue and did a magnificent job of mitigating the threat posed by Arkansas guard JD Notae. But part of Duke’s advantage in that matchup was the Razorbacks lineup included fewer high-level threats beyond him. That’s why the coaches aimed so much of their D at Notae. Such teams as Villanova and North Carolina have more players who are capable of big scoring nights, which will create greater stress on a defense that still ranks only No. 45 at KenPom.com.
Like many other teams in this tournament, they are not elite at the point guard position, but Dajuan Harris understands his physical limitations and generally gets the ball to where it needs to be, and the reemergence of dynamic transfer Remy Martin as a change-of-pace offensive generator is a difficult component for opposing defenses to manage. He can hurt the Jayhawks at times with his shot-selection, but he’s been much better with that during this tournament, save perhaps the first 20 minutes of the Elite Eight game against Miami. Self remains one of the most underrated defensive coaches. He is not one of those who is often cited in such conversations because his schemes aren’t flashy, and because KU is happy to operate at a quick tempo when it suits the roster or the game in question.
But McCormack has been an inconsistent player, and that rarely is tolerated at the Final Four level. If he’s matched in a title game against Duke’s Mark Williams, can he be a significant factor? The point guard dynamic will be a problem until it is not. If someone such as Villanova’s Collin Gillespie puts a defensive lock on Harris, can Martin be counted upon to do more than just juice the offense? He made some defensive errors in the Miami game that ultimately were lost in the one-sided game, but there’ll be less of a disguise for any issue now. Here’s another thing: It took Kansas until the second half against Miami to make its first 3-point shot. That’s not a one-game thing. The Jayhawks are 285th in 3-point percentage, 283rd in 3-point usage. If a team can limit Agbaji’s quality 3-point looks, KU might have trouble generating the necessary offense to win a close game.
They went into Cameron Indoor Stadium on the final day of the regular season and, with the sort of desperation only a team on the NCAA Tournament bubble can understand, blew Duke off the court in the final 11 minutes of a 94-81 win. Their small-guard combination of Caleb Love and R.J. Davis can cause problems for the opposition because each has great quickness and is a high-end 3-point shooter. It will be a different challenge than anything Duke, for all its success, has faced in this NCAA Tournament – although obviously not a new one from what they’ve faced before. But even if the players are the same, they aren’t playing the same. There is an elevated feeling of confidence, which led Love to a career-best 30 points in the Sweet 16, and Davis to lay siege to the Duke lane and set up stretch-4 Brady Manek for open 3-pointers. In the middle of all this is long, bouncy center Armando Bacot, who excels at rebounding and finishing around the rim.
They weren’t required to stop an exceptional offense in the Sweet 16 or Elite Eight, although they did shut down the young Baylor Bears in the second round. They do not disrupt the ball; they are 349th out of 358 teams at forcing turnovers, according to KenPom.com. It feels like a squad with bigger, more dynamic wings to attack the lane – like Duke or Kansas -- can cause problems for the Carolina perimeter. A defense that can shut down the Heels’ perimeter attack might afford to go one-on-one against Bacot in the post. He was 9-of-10 for 19 points against Virginia Tech in the ACC Tournament, but the rest of the Heels were 3-of-26 from 3-point range. Carolina is talented, but who is the player that can rise above the rest when the national title is at stake?
So maybe after he’s finished playing professional basketball, Gillespie will be President of the United States. The Wildcats are an absolute chore to guard, freeing shooters with a variety of uncommon moves and screens and also by spreading the court and empowering ballhandlers, particularly Gillespie, to back down defenders and either draw in to defenders for kick-outs to open shooters or to score on postups or turnaround jumpers. There is an astonishing degree of physical and mental toughness in this team. It was there across 80 minutes of basketball in two Big East games against Providence and especially in the Elite Eight game victory against Houston, which the officials allowed to devolve into an MMA fight. They will not back away from any competition.
The Wildcats don’t have an obvious replacement. Even at full strength, they’re just not big enough. They’ve won the title before with smaller teams than the average champ; listed at 6-9 as center for the 2018 championship Wildcats, Omari Spellman was the shortest tallest regular of any championship team in the past 30-plus years. But he was surrounded by elite talents such as Sporting News Player of the Year Jalen Brunson, future Phoenix Suns wing Mikal Bridges and current Sacramento Kings guard Donte DiVencenzo. This is not that Villanova team. There is a reason the tempo for the Wildcats has slowed to 345th in Division I, compared to 150th with the 2018 champions and 274th with the 2016 winners. Wright wants his teams to be precise on offense, because the ability to execute the constant screening and motion to generate high-quality shots for high-quality shooters is why Villanova has reached its third Final Four since 2016. But the pieces aren’t as exceptional now. The Wildcats only are 102nd in effective field goal percentage.
So although they are among the better defensive teams in the country, they can’t compensate as well for the fact they are not built to protect the rim. They rank 264th in block rate; no team outside the top 200 has won the title in the past 20 years, most were in the top 50 and three (03 Syracuse, 04 UConn and 12 Kentucky) were No. 1.:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3521854/Screen_Shot_2015-03-19_at_8.13.20_PM.0.png)
1 seed remaining who will be making the trip to New Orleans. But there will be plenty of college basketball royalty represented when the action tips off Saturday from the Caesars Superdome as Kansas, Villanova, Duke and North Carolina compete for the national title.
8% from the floor but hit 15 of 15 free throws. The Wildcats are not a deep team and could be especially lean in the Final Four after starting shooting guard Justin Moore left the Houston game with an injury. Key reserve guard Jordan Longino is also out due to injury. But Villanova still has veteran stars Collin Gillespie and Jermaine Samuels. Having won 14 of their past 15 games, the Wildcats will be a tough out even with a thin rotation. /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6187793/yum.0.png)
Kansas trailed Miami 35-29 at halftime of its Elite Eight matchup but outscored the Hurricanes 47-15 in the second half to make a statement entering New Orleans. With Arizona State transfer Remy Martin beginning to reach his potential at point guard and senior wing Ochai Agbaji enjoying a renaissance season, the Jayhawks are strong in the back court. Their cast of role players, led by dynamic forwards Christian Braun and Jalen Wilson, is deep as well. 
1 and enjoyed a mostly smooth ride through ACC play until the end. Then, in Coach K's final home game, the Blue Devils lost 94-81 against arch rival North Carolina and squandered the chance to send Krzyzewski out with a regular season sweep of the program's nearby nemesis. A week later, an 82-67 loss to Virginia Tech in the ACC Tournament title game sent the Blue Devils into the Big Dance without much momentum. But Duke's young team has grown up in a hurry with sophomores Jeremy Roach and Mark Williams playing key roles to compliment freshman phenoms AJ Griffin and Paolo Banchero. In victories over Texas Tech and Arkansas during the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight, Duke turned in sterling offensive performances. So far in this tournament, Krzyzewski has reached 1,200 career victories, 100 career NCAA Tournament victories and passed UCLA legend John Wooden for most Final Four appearances by a coach with 13. Now the only question is whether Duke can get Krzyzewski a sixth national title. 
1 for first time since 1983 
UC Davis odds, Cream City Classic picks 
1 for first time since 1983 
Gonzaga final 
There have never been such a number of Russians in the NCAA. 
Inside is my story and a video interview with the guys. 
This text is only about those Russians who compete in the first, strongest, division. 
Last summer, the defender represented the Russian under-20 team at the Euro Challenger, although he himself was only 18. 
Then Lokomotiv saw me at the Russian Championship. Together with a team from my city, from Chekhov, we took fourth place, and everyone was very surprised. I was seen by coach Petar Marinkovic, who called me to Loko, ”recalls Evdokimov. 
There, the defender, at the request of the university coach, worked hard on three-pointers and performed at least 500 long-range shots a day. 
They came into my class, saw that I was tall, did a couple of tests, asked me different questions and invited me to practice. I studied at Gloria for a long time, then I got into the MBA Junior Junior League, from there I was taken to the Super League. I played there for literally a year, and after graduating from high school I decided that it would be wise to go to the United States. I contacted Skryagin (Alexander Skryagin, ProFuturo Sports, - note "Interception"), because he was the only person who knows more about moving to the USA than me. We talked to him, I dropped my highlights to him, and he helped me find a school, - says Kotov. 
This means that the university where Vitya plays often goes to the "March Madness" and has a tangible chance of winning the NCAA. 
Lakhin gave two good games and ... received an invitation from the "soldiers". 
Alexey Zhukov, the head coach of the “army” CYBL, left to work as an assistant in Nizhny Novgorod, and Maxim Sharafan came to CSKA from Lokomotiv. He worked with Vitya for three years, and during this time Lakhin managed to understand that he wants to play in Russia only at the highest level - in CSKA - and if it doesn’t work out, then it’s better to leave. 
Lakhin did another MRI, and it showed that the same meniscus was completely torn. The doctors said that it would take six months to recover. Therefore, Vitya simply missed his first season in the NCAA. 
Whether to leave it, decided the new head coach. But in the end, the center managed to meet with him before departure and find a common language. The coach wanted to protect the Russians in the squad. 
Slowly, I began to play for the sports school of the Admiralteisky district, for the Zenit Junior Junior League, played for the Russian national team U16, U18. We went to different tournaments, and somewhere the scouts saw my game and invited me to the USA, says Savrasov. 
Vlad and another guy were offered to the "soldiers" - just to look at them. But the screening went well, and after one of the training sessions, Vlad was offered to move to Moscow. New school, new surroundings, heavy loads, training twice a day - Vlad says that the first six months in the capital were the most difficult time in his life. 
And in the end, I decided to move to another team, to Florida, - say Goldin. 
He played in the Junior Junior League for a year, after which the entire management of the team and almost the entire squad moved to the PSC Sakhalin. At the same time, the base of the club remained in Vladivostok. Glushkov spent a year in the new club, after which he received an invitation from Moscow, from the IBA. His coach Alexander Antipov invited him. 
"Interception"). Very cool feeling. 64 top teams, all at the highest level. We had two or three hotels, each floor was dedicated to a specific team. I don’t know how much it could be called the same “March Madness”, because, of course, all the measures were taken anyway. We had a quarantine, we had to be tested every day. And so everything was at the highest level,” recalls Glushkov. 
Lived in Florida, then studied in Georgia, in Tennessee. I travel a lot around the country - sometimes I live there, sometimes there. Somehow I quickly learned English, apparently because I was still young. Literally in a year. In Russia, I studied English for three classes, but could not learn it. Here I first lived with my sister, she pushed me to talk to people, and somehow everything turned out by itself, - says Didenko. 
In mocks - that is, expert predictions - he is not drafted, but he still has to play the whole season, so everything is in his hands. 
Such an assessment helped him get into the Gonzaga College in the NCAA - this is one of the top programs, which, for example, reached the NCAA finals last season, having suffered its first loss of the season in this very final. Pasha then did not go to the parquet. A year before, the team did not get into the "March Madness" only because the championship was stopped due to a pandemic. 
In Russian, he speaks with an accent, but quickly, a lot and on the topic. 
This does not calm you down, but the hint is clear: do not think about the weather, you will be in the hall all winter anyway. They also talk about how big their stadium is - in the case of Buffalo, this is 10 thousand spectators. You are used to playing in Germany for 700-800 spectators, but here it is 15 times more. In addition, you will be on the federal channel, in computer games, and everyone will know your name. Well, in general, half of the entire university every Friday will be waiting for you and your partners to run out of the tunnel. All in all, it all sounded very interesting. :no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/11706519/ncaawhatisthis.jpg)
A professional team from the German top league approached me: we are ready to give you so many tens of thousands of euros, you don’t even need to play; and when you finish your studies, you will compete for us, and we will give much more. When a student is offered such money and such prospects, it is hard to refuse. I was lucky that there were people around who went through all this. They said, “Better give up for now. Otherwise, you will be attached to them and are guaranteed to lose your education, which costs up to 200-250 thousand dollars. You can accept such an offer later.” And I refused. 
” When a 52-year-old German doctor, a medical guru, says these words to you, you agree. 
The only thing that should not be: if someone turns around and hits you with a knee in the knee. 14 minutes of the game pass, the opponent hits me with a knee in the knee, and I tear the ligaments again. 
The most famous such tournament is the Rainbow Classic in Hawaii. It was won by Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. Buffalo was invited to the 45th Rainbow Classic - of all the teams that were there, we were considered the most unknown and weakest. We won the first game in overtime by 1 point. The second - with a difference of 2 points. In the third game, we have already confidently won with a difference of 14 points. In the end, we won the tournament. Then it turned out that this was the last tournament, it was closed and the 46th draw was no longer going to be held. I have a photo: I, along with some Hawaiian doll, full of people, and the feeling that you are in history. I went up to my coach and said, “For the last 10 years, I have been playing basketball two or three times a day. All this is for the sake of this day. 
In the year I entered, such pranks - in America it's called hazing - were banned after some unpleasant incidents. The usual things remained: after training, you carry dirty clothes for washing, you carry backpacks to the plane, you change food according to certificates and bring it to the team. Well, you are also sitting next to the coach on the bus. 
If you are a professional, you know that there are several years of career ahead. In college, you can only play for four years, 30 games each year. 3 matches played - 117 left. At the same time, the constant question is: what are you willing to give to the college in exchange for what it invests in you? I didn’t go home for the holidays for three years - I trained. During the summer and winter holidays, the number of training sessions reached three per day. One of them was mandatory, and the other two were optional. The first practice was at 5:30 am. It was optional, but if you didn’t come, you had questions. 
” So instead of going to the movies the night before your workout and eating burgers, you go to bed. Even despite the fact that you are 20 years old, and around is America with all its possibilities. 
We won that match, and I hugged everyone, especially the Americans. 
I played against him many times in my youth. It was about 10 years ago, when he weighed 135 kg with a height of 210 cm. He played for 5-6 minutes, because it was difficult for him to move around. But when he played, you understood that he does everything. It was clear that he had talent, that he knew how to throw, give passes, defend himself - he was the basketball player with whom everyone wants to play together. He sat on the Barcelona bench for a year, then moved to America, began to take care of himself, lose weight and become what he has become now. 
I'm more suited to European basketball, but I like to watch the NBA more. Well, those who do not know basketball will want to watch the NBA - that is why it is so popular. 
6-2.8. I entered business school, I had excellent grades, and the coach and I did not raise this issue again. 
She covered all tuition fees. All expenses for books, and in America this is a crazy expensive part of education: if you buy used, you can meet 5-6 thousand dollars a year; if new, it can reach 12 thousand. All housing and food expenses. And money for life - just for life, without walking in a big way. 
" "Training has just ended - we are all very tired." “I’m certainly not an expert, but if the day before the game you can’t descend normally from a height of 30 centimeters, then perhaps your preparation is not entirely correct.” 
” I approached myself: “Coach, don’t worry. I have one year left in college - I will definitely play. After 6 months, he recovered and played for a year. 
Throughout the summer, if I went there, I always met a couple of people on the terrace who said: "Hmm ... I saw you somewhere." I pointed to the street - there my face was smiling from the poster. 
And you will not lie: everything is so. 
The second went to his father in a PR agency. The third became a grocery store manager. The fourth one works in a bank, very good, but he has been doing this only for the last few months - before that, he had been “looking for himself” for four years, trying to become a professional player, but that was all. Many just teach basketball at school. 
When every morning they brought him to the locker room, the whole team laughed. And then it became clear even to my coach: Fedotov and basketball are, of course, a passion, but this is not for life. Then I asked for an internship, and I was assigned to a company that services hundreds of stadiums in the world, including the main arena of the Australian Open and Wembley Stadium. A publicly traded company with 42,000 employees, headquartered in Buffalo, founded by our college graduate and major sponsor of the basketball team. 
In Russia, there is no such thing; here, on the contrary, this is expected of you. I once told my father about my work in a German company: “Dad, they don’t perceive me there, because I’m 24 years old.” “Wait, it's a very short time. By the age of 26, no one will pay attention to your age anymore. And so it happened: at 26 they began to be perceived as an adult. This is understandable: studies there are very long, almost all of my German classmates finished their studies at 28-29years. By that time in Russia, I had already been the general director for three years. 
