After winning the Championship in 2022, Zenit cannot reach the final of the VTB United League for two seasons in a row. In 2023, the St. Petersburg club stopped UNICS in the semifinals and CSKA in the last draw.
However, the team from the Neva shore is not giving up and is already working hard to strengthen the squad before the start of the new competition. The contracts with coach Javier Pascual, as well as Trent Fraser, Sergei Karasev and Igor Volkhin, were extended. In addition, Alex Poythress and Andrey Vorontsevich were signed. In addition, as the Championship reported, the St. Petersburg club was reinforced by Lokomotiv graduate and defender of the Russian national team Alexander Shcherbenev.
We evaluate the provisional results of Zenit’s transfer campaign.
BC Zenit award at the end of the 2023/2024 season
Photo: Press service of the VTB United League
After the 2022 championship, the St. Petersburg club made important changes to its lineup. However, they cannot be considered successful. Not all newcomers adapted to Javier Pascual’s system, and during the 2022/2023 season they had to get rid of three foreign players at once, which is not the most typical decision for big clubs. However, this did not help in the playoffs, in which Zenit failed to reach the final.
Before the start of the 2023/2024 season, it seemed that Zenit was the main favorite of the international tournament. The team not only retained almost all foreign players and Javier Pascual, but was also strengthened with top-level foreign players, such as Boyan Dubljevic and Kyle Kuric, who played in the Euroleague. Vince Hunter and Georgy Zhbanov also moved from UNICS to St. Petersburg. In addition, the captain of the Russian national team, Timofey Gerasimov, who previously played for Yenisei, was signed. The blue and white easily won the United League Super Cup and confirmed their status as one of the strongest teams before the start of the season.
During the season there were no such forced changes in the line-up as in the previous year, but injuries intervened. Throughout the championship, Zenit had someone in the infirmary, and in most cases foreign players. The latter could not help but make his own adjustments. In the spring, the team was more or less healthy, which helped the St. Petersburg team win the Russian Cup. The playoffs for Pascual’s team started strongly: two victories on home ground over the United League newcomer Uralmash. However, in Yekaterinburg the blue-and-whites lost twice and had to return to St. Petersburg for the fifth match. At the same time, CSKA faced Yenisey in three matches and waited for the winner of this pair. Zenit won at home, but the military team had only two days to prepare, while the Muscovites had a week. The St. Petersburg team lost to CSKA in six matches, but in the series beat Lokomotiv-Kuban for third place.
Javier Pascual
Photo: Nikita Chuntomov, BC Parma
Zenit entered the offseason in limbo, as the future in coach Javier Pascual’s team was unclear. It is not the first year that the Spanish coach returns to the Euroleague, but there are no details.
First of all, the St. Petersburg club announced a contract extension with American defender Trent Fraser. This was followed by the renewal of agreements with Sergei Karasev and Igor Volkhin. Only later did Zenit officially announce that Javier Pascual would remain in the team for a year, which made the blue and white fans very happy.
There were also losses: the club announced its parting with Sergei Toropov and Artem Klimenko. Foreign media also write that American center Josh Carlton, signed just before the start of the playoffs, will also leave Zenit.
At the end of the 2023/2024 season, the contracts of Juwan Morgan, Boyan Dubljevic, Andrey Zubkov and Denis Zakharov expired. Thomas Ertel and Kyle Kuric also have options to terminate their contracts. However, Zenit has not yet made any official announcement regarding the future of all the basketball players mentioned above.
Alex Poythress
Photo: Press service of the VTB United League
However, it is much more interesting who Zenit signed to reinforce them. The first newcomer to the St. Petersburg team was his old friend Alex Poythress, who already played for the club from 2020 to 2022. The American helped the blue and white reach the Euroleague playoffs for the first time in history (2020/ 2021), to achieve bronze medals in the United League (2020/2021) and silver in the Super Cup (2021), and to win the first edition of the revived Kondrashin and Belov Cup (2021), and also become champions of the United League and champions of Russia for the first time (2021/2022).
The next newcomer to the St. Petersburg team was the most titled active Russian basketball player, Andrei Vorontsevich. The 36-year-old veteran, ten-time United League champion and three-time Euroleague winner, signed a contract with Zenit on a 1+1 basis. The third newcomer from the blue-white-sky was the Lokomotiv graduate Alexander Shcherbyenev, who played at the Euro with the Krasnodar team, became the silver medalist of the United League and the finalist of the Super Cup.
Foreign media also write about Zenit’s interest in Brazilian Red Star defender Iago dos Santos. However, according to his own reports, UNICS Kazan also claims the player. Thus, the squad with confirmed basketball players for next season looks like this:
defenders: Fraser, Gerasimov, Shcherbenev, Zhbanov; forward: Karasev, Vorontsevich, Volkhin; center: Hunter, Poythress.
Trent Fraser
Photo: Press service of the VTB United League
It cannot be said that Zenit is simply putting together a new team. The club still has many players from last season. The current signings are more like one-off reinforcements, and the pattern and style of play will probably remain more or less the same. It is quite possible that forward Pavel Zemsky and centre Yegor Ryzhov will move from the second team to the first team, and the news about the interest in Iago dos Santos will be relevant only if Thomas Ertel decides to leave the contract with St. Petersburg.
Alex Poythress played quite a few matches under the management of Javier Pascual and deliberately returned under the wing of the Spanish specialist. And this despite the fact that he had an offer from a Euroleague club. He and Vince Hunter will organize one of the strongest front lines in the United League. Andrei Vorontsevich will obviously act as a veteran and mentor in the locker room, receiving minor minutes on the court. During the championship season, Zenit had Vitaly Fridzon, Sergei Monya and Egor Vyaltsev in its squad. Perhaps the management of the St. Petersburg team wants to again rely on the presence of very authoritative basketball players in the lineup.
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Alexander Shcherbenev lost his place at Lokomotiv last season. If in the year when the Krasnodar team reached the final, Shcherbenev appeared on the court 38 times in the starting lineup and spent an average of more than 22 minutes per game, then last season he only appeared in the starting lineup nine times and He spent less than 16 minutes on the court. His arrival at Zenit will mark a new milestone in the 23-year-old’s career. We’ll see how he takes advantage of the new opportunity next season.
Zenit will fight for the title again, and the current signings speak for themselves. The residents of Saint Petersburg, as in the last season, have everything for it. How will the fight for the title end? We’ll see it in a year.
Even more opinions of the author can be found on his Telegram channel: “Black on Orange”.
