Preview

Cedevita vs. Lokomotiv Kuban. EuroCup. Preview

On October 24th, Lokomotiv Kuban plays against Cedevita on the road in Zagreb. The Croats have already surprised EuroCup and beaten Alba Berlin. It seems they are ready for another surprise.

The Take

Lokomotiv Kuban is a honeypot for any EuroCup team. If you beat Loko, you are a hero for a whole week. At the moment, nobody could do that in EuroCup. In Round 1, Loko hammered Gdynia on the road and then defeated Limoges and Tofas at home.

Lokomotiv shows high efficiency at the start of the season, averaging 85.7 points. Last year, the index was 81.6.

Krasnodar also averages 69.7 let-in points and takes the fourth place in the tournament. However, it’s not a reason for underestimating the Croats.

Cedevita is able to stop shooting teams without high efficiency. The Zagreb club averages 73.7 points in EuroCup. However, it was enough to beat strong Alba Berlin.

They defeated the Germans primarily due to defense which stopped the top scoring team of the tournament. They usually let in 72 points. Alba managed to score 73. They are also the sixth top defensive team of EuroCup. It seems Sito Alonso will build his advancing strategy on defense. After three games, the Croats take the second place in the standings.

Defense is based on rebounds. In the Arka Gdynia game, Cedevita took record breaking 54 rebounds. At the moment, the team averages 42 rebounds and they are top rebounders of the tournament.

Opponent

43-year old Sito Alonso has a quite competitive roster. The team is able to fight not only for Top-16 but also for play-offs.

Last year, Alonso failed in famous Barcelona. However, he is doing better in a smaller team. He headed Cedevita in the mid of the last season and managed to win the Croatian championship.

Justin Cobbs moved from French champion Le Mans to Croatian champion Cedevita. The American had a big tour in Europe and even played in the VTB United League for VEF. But his best season was the previous one.

In Le Mans, he averaged 14.1 points and 5.9 assists (the fourth top assistant of the tournament). He keeps this up with Cedevita.

Loko

After the Tofas game, Loko’s leaders haven’t changed. Whitehead is followed by Ponitka (11 points) and Mustafa Fall with Dima Kulagin (10.3).

Dmitry Khvostov is the third top assistant of the team after Whitehead and Kulagin (3.3). He is also the fourth top assistant in EuroCup history (353 assists).

Jajuan Johnson takes the 11th place in the tournament with 80 block shots in his career.

Where-When

Cedevita vs. Lokomotiv Kuban game takes place in Zagreb on October 24th at 20:30 Moscow time within Round 4 of EuroCup.

The game is broadcasted by lokobasket.com

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