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However, the team began to be plagued by injuries: Johnson and Karvel Anderson were out for a very long time, and the team had to urgently look for replacements. This is how Aleksandr Gudumak, Tahjere McCall and John Jenkins joined. Gudumak arrived as an All-Star – he was selected by fans to participate in the All-Star Game 2025. Patrick Miller, Kirill Yelatontsev were also invited – as well as Andrey Vedishchev who became the head coach of the Russian players' team and defeated the team of legionnaires with a score of 124:107.

Loko finished the regular season with a positive balance of wins and losses against other Top-4 clubs (7-5). However, several unnecessary losses to clubs from the lower part of the table led to an intermediate 4th place. Yelatontsev was named the best young player in the league for the second year in a row, Cleveland was awarded the DPOY title, Miller was included in the symbolic team of the week 8 times – more often than anyone else in the league.

In the 1/4 finals, Loko won the series against Uralmash with a score of 3-1. The opponent in the semifinals was the winner of the regular season, Zenit, which by that time had won 23 victories in a row. The series turned out to be incredibly intense: in game #4, Miller set a league record, scoring 14 points in overtime, in game #6, Loko recouped 4 points in the last minute, but in the seventh game, Zenit still won. The bronze medal series against UNICS had a fantastic culmination: at the end of the 4th quarter of game #4, Cleveland scored two long-range three-pointers in a row within 8 seconds, sending the game into overtime. Alas, in the second additional five minutes, the opponent turned out to be stronger, winning the series 1-3.

Anyway, the club system still earned gold medals – Loko-2010 won the U16 Russian Championship. Also, our reserve team, ORSS-Lokomotiv-Kuban, won their first trophy ever – the Kupol Cup.

In the VTB United League championship, the team at first mixed big victories with big losses. A good example is the defeat in Kazakhstan, followed by victory over CASK 3 days later. By late autumn, Loko took a good pace. DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell received the MVP of November, and in December Andrei Martyuk shared the same title with Anton Astapkovich.

In January, Aleksander Shcherbenev was recognized as the "Athlete of Kuban-2023", and Kirill Yelatontsev was named the best young player of the VTB United League in April.

Akoon-Purcell and Martyuk were invited to the All-Star Game; the American forward scored 44 points and was awarded the title of the MVP title.

Loko finished the first stage of the regular championship in third place (19 wins, 7 losses). After 10 games of the second stage, the red-greens let Zenit pass ahead. In February-April, the team was replenished with three legionnaires: Maurice Ndour, Patrick Miller and Karvel Anderson. Bliznyuk was sent on loan to Nizhny Novgorod, the contract with Morgan was terminated.

In the quarterfinals, PARMA was swept 3-0. In the semifinals with UNICS, the series stretched to all 7 games, where the score was tied a minute before the end of the 7th game, but everything turned out, alas, not in our favor. In the bronze series, we lost to Zenit 1-3. At least, Anderson set a VTB United League record for the most number of three-pointers scored in one season – 159.

As for other important events of the Lokomotiv-Kuban Association, Loko-2 took bronze in the VTB United Youth League, Loko-2010 became the silver medalist of the Russian Championship, and our Academy hosted the Superfinal of the XVII Lokobasket – School League.

And, although the team qualified for the playoffs only in 5th place, the quarter-final opponent, Pari Nizhny Novgorod, was beaten 3:0. Loko created a much louder sensation in the semi-finals, knocking CSKA out of the fight for gold, a team that had previously missed the finals for the last time in the 2001/02 season! The fate of this incredibly dramatic series was decided in overtime of the 7th match, where Krasnodar basketball graduate Alexander Shcherbenev showed off his composure and accuracy.

The final series began very optimistically for Loko: in the first match UNICS was beaten in Kazan with a solid margin of safety. However, then the Kazan team won four matches in a row. Lokomotiv-Kuban won silver medals in the VTB United League for the second time in its history. Loko-2 achieved brilliant success, becoming the champion of the VTB United Youth League. Loko-2008 also won gold medals at the All-Russian Championship. And Alexander Shcherbenev, Vladislav Yemchenko, Andrey Martyuk and Anton Kvitkovskikh, who play for the main team, have secured their status as the main players of the Russian national team.

Evgeny Pashutin left the club and his assistant Serbian specialist Branko Maksimovic took the position as an acting coach. Guard Jaylen Barford joined the team and immediately became one of the main offensive options. But Maksimovich did not manage to make his plans for Eurocup. Russian teams were excluded from Euroleague and Eurocup in February. Foreigners parted ways with the club by mutual agreement.

Afterwards Loko put up an impressive 10-1 streak in VTB League. The team successfully completed the regular season and knocked out PARMA-PARIBET (3:0) in the first round of the playoffs. Loko approached the semi-finals with CSKA in great mood. Loko imposed serious fight to the longtime leader of the Russian basketball.

Loko lost in the series with the score1:3, but had a chance to achieve more and basketball experts gave positive feedback on the performance. But Loko roster, noticeably rejuvenated with the departure of foreigners, had no energy left for the struggle bronze series. The team gave Kazan a real fight, won one of the away games, but eventually lost the series with the score 1:3 and took fourth place in the VTB United League championship.

Before the start of the season the team managed to retain the backbone of legionnaires and the coaching staff headed by Evgeny Pashutin. Alan Williams, Will Cummings, Mantas Kalnietis and Mindaugas Kuzminskas stayed at Loko. As a reinforcement were signed contracts with Jordan Crawford, Reggie Lynch and Kevin Hervey. Unfortunately, team leader Alan Williams was seriously injured in November. Drew Gordon came to the problematic center position due to this injury. In February Nigel Williams-Goss entered the team's game. All newcomers played an important role, but not all of them were able to finish the season at the level. Jordan Crawford was expelled in February, Nigel Williams-Goss was injured in the second match of the quarterfinal series against Khimki and was unable to show his full level in the semifinals. In March team captain Stanislav Ilnitskiy was injured, and in May, just before the start of the VTB League playoffs, regular season MVP Mantas Kalnietis dropped out.

Unfortunately, all these moments could not but affect Loko's results, but this season can be confidently called, at least, not bad. The EuroCup quarterfinals and VTB United League semifinals are a vivid confirmation of this!

Italian specialist Luca Banchi became the head coach of the team.

The roster was joined by American legionnaires Sam Decker, Will Cummings, Johnny O'Bryant and Alan Williams, as well as Lithuanian defender Mantas Kalnietis, who played for Loko in the seasons 2012/2013, 2013/2014, 2014/2015.

On November 15, after unsatisfactory results at the start of the season, the club's management decided to part ways with Luca Banchi. Bogdan Karaicic was appointed as acting coach.

On December 7 after a home defeat to Avtodor Saratov Evgeny Pashutin, who coached Loko from 2012 to 2014, was appointed as head coach. After Pashutin's return Loko beat Partizan in the Eurocup, but lost to Tofas away and for the first time did not qualify to top-16 of Eurocup.

In VTB United League Loko with Pashutin made a spurt of eight victories in a row. In March the season was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic. Loko was in third place after Khimki and CSKA.

Despite Moustapha Fall and Jamel McLean’s injuries Loko finished the group stage in the first place and TOP-16 of Eurocup. The quarter-finals against UNICS were as tight as it might be, but Loko were unlucky by having lost the third game on the road.

In the VTB United League Loko finished on the fourth place after a powerful ending of the regular season. But in the quarter-finals against Zenit, Bob Donewald’s team was let down by injuries (before the fourth game Dorell Wright had to recover along with Dmitry Khvostov) and the series finished with a 3:1 score and the St. Petersburg club advancing further.

Lokomotiv Kuban has one of the highest attendance in Russia. The club is a multilevel sports organisation developing both professional and amateur sports. In the Loko system there are seven youth teams players from which are called up to the national teams of different ages on a regular basis. Lokomotiv Kuban hosts an all-Russian children’s tournament “Lokobasket - School league” that unites more than 200 000 contenders from all over the country. In 2016 the club initiated a unique basketball center aimed to lead young Russian player on a new level. More than that, in 2018, we began construction of a club’s new training center. The first part of the work is to be finished by the end of 2019.

Loko set an all-time Eurocup record of 20 victories in a row, winning all the games up until the final. Unfortunately, the team lost the first game in Basket Hall and could not turn the game around in Istanbul.

The VTB United league regular season was finished with Loko being third in the table. But the club couldn’t expand the success onto the playoffs. With 3-0 in the series Khimki advanced to the next round.

Nonetheless, Look won a trophy that season. In the Russian cup final against Nizhny Novgorod Loko won with a huge gap — 85:64 — with an Russians-only roster throughout the whole tournament.

Much to the disappointment, Loko didn’t get any trophies in the jubilee year. At the start of this season Fotis Katsikaris took the team under his wing but due to the poor results in all the tournaments it was decided to part ways with the Greek coach. Sasa Obradovic came as a substitute. With the Serbian specialist in charge Loko managed to reach Eurocup semi-finals where they lost to the future champions — Unicaja.

A similar story happened in the VTB United League. Loko beat UNICS in the quarter-finals but lost the semis to CSKA.

As a result not only Loko won a place on the Berlin pedestal, but also made a huge contribution to the future — Andrei Vedischev, the president of the club, announced launching of the first basketball center for children in Russia, that is aimed on developing kids from the region.