Preview

Time to show dedication

Today at 5 PM Lokomotiv Kuban will play its third game at the training camp in Antalya – against Türk Telekom. Here's what you should know about the opponent and the live broadcast.

Team in rebuild

Türk Telekom Basketball Kulübü is an Ankara-based club, which at the turn of the century regularly became a semi-finalist of the Turkish championship, and played in the Euroleague three times.

In 2016, the team dropped to the second division, but returned two years later, and the 2022/23 season became the most successful in the history of the white-blues: the Eurocup final and victory in the regular championship of the country (in the playoffs, however, they stopped in the semi-finals).

The following year, the results of Türk Telekom dipped, and before the current season, the management decided to significantly update the roster. Forward Vasilis Charalampopulos came from the Italian Dinamo Sassari; the player has a great winning record: in the 2010s he became the champion three times as part of Panathinaikos. From Würzburg parted the best defensive player of the 2024 Bundesliga Javon Bess. From Hapoel Tel Aviv arrived Kyle Alexander, NBA vice-champion in the 2019/20 season (he, however, played only two games for the Miami Heat, but would have received a ring if his team had won against the Lakers).

Türk Telekom was also strengthened by faces familiar to fans of the VTB United League: Anthony Brown played for UNICS in the 2022/23 season, and Olivier Hanlan played for CSKA quite recently.

Andrey Vedishchev, the head coach of Lokomotiv Kuban PBC

Türk Telekom is a pretty strong team with a very experienced head coach Erdem Can. They lost the first two games at the Gloria Cup so they will be determined to finally win. So the game is expected to be tough. We analyzed the game with Uralmash and found out that the players were not properly prepared for the game mentally. Our rotation of the squad also had an impact. But this is pre-season – we are in the process of training loads and doing time distribution exactly as it was planned. Against Türk Telekom, our main task is to go out with a different energy and show that we have learned our lesson and want to win. We will try to play more aggressively in attack, more team-like in defense. The main thing I want to see from the players is dedication.

Where to watch

We are not allowed to broadcast today’s game on our website, since the rights to exclusively show the Gloria Cup belong to Okko.

Paid subscription holders can watch the game here.

We will promptly post the highlights of the game in the club’s Telegram channel. Subscribe if for some reason you haven’t done so yet!

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