March Madness offers college hoops fans the ultimate in basketball intensity as 68 teams from across the country punch their tickets to the Big Dance and compete for the championship. Basketball devotees wait all season to fill out their brackets, cheer on their hometown heroes, and scope out promising NBA hopefuls as the nation's best college players take the court. March Madness has become one of the most anticipated television events of the year, but the thrills are even bigger inside the arena, where ticket buyers can hear the roar of the crowd feel the rumble of the action in person. The competition gets fiercer each weekend until the Final Four duke it out.
2021 NCAA® Division I Men's Basketball Championship
The action, the drama, the madness - there's nothing like the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship. From the First Four® to the Final Four®, teams battle it out to survive and advance in the single-elimination tournament. But only one team returns home as the national champion. Known as The Big Dance, each team, including the Cinderella teams who make it further in the tournament than many expect, vies for their chance to cut the traditional net from the hoop in victory at the end. Student-athletes give it their all and fans flock to venues to show their support and catch all the hoop heroics live. Be a part of March Madness® with Ticketmaster Verified Tickets.
NCAA Sweet 16®
The pressure is on from the start of every NCAA tournament, and it only builds with each passing round. Sixty-eight teams tip off at the start, and by the second weekend only 16 teams will remain - the Sweet 16. The NCAA Sweet 16 teams then play regional semifinals for a chance to move onto the regional finals (and become part of the Elite Eight®) later in the weekend. Fans can score NCAA Sweet 16 tickets with Ticketmaster to catch every epic play and edge-of-your-seat moment live
NCAA Elite Eight®
Half of the teams in the NCAA Sweet 16 get eliminated, leaving the Elite Eight for the regional finals. And these teams are truly elite - only the most talented and dedicated make it to this prestigious round of the NCAA tournament. Fans with Elite Eight tickets bring tons of passion and enthusiasm to the stands, cranking up the excitement at every matchup. The four games take place at the end of the second weekend, and winners advance to the Final Four®.
NCAA Final Four®
It all comes down to this. Student-athletes have pushed themselves hard to make it to the Final Four®, and they need to push themselves even harder to become the national champions. Fans score tickets to cheer their hearts out from the stands - and to give their team an edge. Each team is the champion of their region (East, South, Midwest and West) and must clutch the win to move on to the Men’s Basketball Championship taking place the following Monday. Featuring the two top teams in college basketball, the national championship game never fails to deliver an action-packed, white-knuckle finish to the entire tournament.
March Madness History
Ever since the first NCAA Division 1 Men's Basketball Championship was held in 1939, March Madness has gripped basketball fans across the country as top-tier amateurs lay it all on the line for a shot at glory. Originally played with a bracket of eight teams, both the tournament's number of competitors and its popularity have expanded exponentially in its 75+ years of existence. Today, 68 teams tango in one of four regional brackets (East, South, Midwest, and West) as the hoops hysteria spreads to arenas across the country. From perennial favorites to bracket-busting Cinderella stories, the tournament has seen it all, and fans won't want to miss a second of the unpredictable action hitting the hardwood this spring.
90,000 Rita from the Huskies. $7k for a ticket and training with Kelsey Plum / Collegiate Basketball Association
In her new post, University of Washington quarterback Margarita Pleskevich spoke about marketing in the NCAA and the collegiate sports atmosphere in the US.
Another interesting topic about the NCAA is the tickets and all the paraphernalia.
Tickets for the matches of the women's basketball team of our university usually cost from $10 to $20, and for the men's matches they only start at $30, and I don't even know where they end. (smiles)
For matches of the first and second rounds of March Madness, tickets start at $30 and end at around $3,000, depending on the venue.
In the next rounds, such as Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight, tickets start at $130 and can top out at around $3,000.
And further, at the Final Four and the National Championship, the minimum price starts somewhere around $150. The maximum I found was $7,000. Seven thousand dollars for a ticket to a boys' game at the university!
Of course, and this is not the limit. The average price of a ticket for a football team game in Washington is $70, and for the playoffs the price just starts at $1,000.
A lot of people go to the matches of the football team, the stadium - Husky Stadium - is packed to capacity at almost every game. And it accommodates 70,000 spectators! By comparison, the men's basketball arena, the Hec Edmundson Pavilion, has a capacity of 10,000 fans and is overcrowded for most matches, even with no place for us to sit.
If we arrived somewhere in time for the first half, then there was no place to sit, we had to stand in the aisle, and even then, if allowed. (smiles)
About 1,500-2,000 people went to our games (2,500 was the maximum for the game against Colorado).
We had free quotes for friends and relatives. For example, I could order 5 tickets for anyone. Or she could give these 5 tickets to another girl from her team if her tickets were not enough for her. All that had to be done was to go to a special website, enter full information about who I invite, first and last name, place of residence, who this person is to me, how long we have known each other and where we met.
After - add this person to the system, where they must approve it (this takes 1-2 days). And after all this procedure, you can add his ticket to any game.
As I said, I had 5 tickets for each game - home or away. Our matches at the beginning of the season could be found simply on our site and watched online, but most of the games, especially when the conference games began, could only be watched if you had a special American provider.
It is clear that in Russia my family did not have this, so they could not watch our matches in real time. Our games were also broadcast on a dedicated Pac-12 conference site, but you had to pay for that.
What's good is that all our matches were recorded, then they were sent to a special site where I had my login and password, which I just gave to my family, and they could watch the games at a convenient time for them. After all, we often played at 16:00, and in Moscow it is the middle of the night.
If our matches were a little earlier, let's say at midnight or 1 am Moscow time, then my grandmother just watched the text broadcast, and then I sent her a link to the game.
Many NCAA games are attended by different stars. I know that Kobe Bryant and Steph Curry often showed up at Oregon University (he didn't show up when we played the Oregon Ducks, unfortunately).
In addition, I often saw Kelsey Plum (2018 World Champion, defenseman of the Las Vegas Aces - approx. ASB), the first pick of the 2017 WNBA draft, who played for the Huskies. Sometimes she even trained with us. At first, it was something unrealistic for me, because changing clothes with such a player in the same dressing room, listening to instructions from Kelsey and playing against her is very cool! This gives a very great experience.
As for the merchandise and shops, almost everyone on campus wears Washington T-shirts or sweatshirts, and mostly purple because that's the color of the university. Many students go to basketball and football games.
We, as players, could go to all matches for free, so at the beginning of the season I often went to football.
This is, of course, a special experience, because a football match is, first of all, a huge show. The game itself goes very slowly, it happens that even in the rain, when you stand and look at what is happening on the field for 2-3 hours.
Of course, when something cool happens, it's just an indescribable emotion!
The atmosphere in men's basketball is almost the same as in football. At the games, there is even a whole section for students who stand the whole match and shout special slogans. And they have separate slogans for the starting controversial, free throws, three-pointers, some even for timeouts.
I also went to volleyball (by the way, there was a girl from St. Petersburg in the team) and gymnastics competitions.
In general, the atmosphere in US collegiate sports is very cool, especially when there are many fans in the hall. It's a very different experience compared to watching matches on TV.
Previous notes:
Rita from Huskies. Russian woman in the "conference of champions"
Rita from " Huskies". Calculus, accounting and… basketball!
Rita from Huskies. "Punishments" and "fires" in training
Rita from " Huskies". Basketball in Vegas
Rita from the Huskies. About Ionescu and basketball with 12 thousand spectators
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 left: Konstantin Dotsenko is now playing in the Loko farm club, Zakhar Vedischev is the basis 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 stayed 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 like to read more, 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 video on YouTube, don't forget to give it a 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 NCAA
The NCAA 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 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 composition.
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% two-pointers, 30% three-pointers, 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.
If you want to keep a close eye on Rosbasket, subscribe to my Telegram channel. There I regularly publish news, insiders, interviews and analyzes.
Basketball devotees wait all season to fill out their brackets, cheer on their hometown heroes, and scope out promising NBA hopefuls as the nation's best college players take the court. March Madness has become one of the most anticipated television events of the year, but the thrills are even bigger inside the arena, where ticket buyers can hear the roar of the crowd feel the rumble of the action in person. The competition gets fiercer each weekend until the Final Four duke it out.
Student-athletes give it their all and fans flock to venues to show their support and catch all the hoop heroics live. Be a part of March Madness® with Ticketmaster Verified Tickets.
The four games take place at the end of the second weekend, and winners advance to the Final Four®.
Originally played with a bracket of eight teams, both the tournament's number of competitors and its popularity have expanded exponentially in its 75+ years of existence. Today, 68 teams tango in one of four regional brackets (East, South, Midwest, and West) as the hoops hysteria spreads to arenas across the country. From perennial favorites to bracket-busting Cinderella stories, the tournament has seen it all, and fans won't want to miss a second of the unpredictable action hitting the hardwood this spring.
(smiles) 
ASB), the first pick of the 2017 WNBA draft, who played for the Huskies. Sometimes she even trained with us. At first, it was something unrealistic for me, because changing clothes with such a player in the same dressing room, listening to instructions from Kelsey and playing against her is very cool! This gives a very great experience. 
At the games, there is even a whole section for students who stand the whole match and shout special slogans. And they have separate slogans for the starting controversial, free throws, three-pointers, some even for timeouts. 
Basketball in Vegas 
There are even universities whose fans spend the night in front of the arena in the hope of having time to buy a ticket. 
He joined the Charleston Cougars - the name of the team of the University of Charleston from South Carolina - in early December last year. 
Nikita was born there. 
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. 
2 steals, 0.8 losses 
We talked to him, I dropped my highlights to him, and he helped me find a school, - says Kotov. 
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). 
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. 
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. 
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. 
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. 
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. 
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. 
7 minutes average 
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. 
Goldin saw that this was a big and serious high-major team, saw the conditions for training and accepted their invitation without hesitation. 
7 minutes average 
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. 
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. 
3% two-pointers, 37.8% three-pointers, 33.3% free throws), 3.5 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 0.3 blocks, 0.2 steals, 1.7 turnovers 
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. 
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. 
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. 
