Parma — CSKA, 11 February 2024

Will is here

The main news of the past few days is the arrival of Will Barton in Moscow. The newcomer arrived via Istanbul on Friday night, on Saturday morning he went for a medical examination at the GMS Clinic, after which he managed to visit Krylatskoye, see part of the practice and meet his teammates. It is clear that Will did not fly with the team - in the coming days he will have to work individually at the team’s facilities.

But for the first time after a long pause, Nikita Kurbanov will appear in CSKA’s lineup. Over the past few days, the forward has been actively practicing, getting into game condition, and will now have a chance to be on the court again in an official game.

Still down

This season, both meetings with Parma turned out to be fiery. In Moscow, the opponents were separated by only one basket, and Perm's top scorer B.J. Johnson (19.5 points on average this season) had a chance to snatch victory at the buzzer, but missed the left-handed layup. In away game, the teams also exchanged the lead several times, the red-and-blues cut the 8-point deficit in the final quarter, but made mistakes in the end and allowed the Molot Sports Palace to celebrate Parma’s first home success against CSKA. By the way, the hosts’ key basket was made by Johnson.

So CSKA is down by three on aggregate…

“We start the second round of the regular season and the schedule immediately sends us to play one of the toughest games on this stage,” says CSKA head coach Emil Rajkovic. “We know how difficult is it to play in Perm, how tough is the opponent. The game will require extra responsibility, aggressiveness and smart decisions. We are very motivated to play hard and try to win this one to work positively during the February break.”

Past matchups

Win/Loss Ratio: 14-2

VTB League games of the 2023-24 season:

15-Oct-2023. CSKA – Parma: 77-76 (+1)
20-Dec-2023. Parma - CSKA: 82-78 (-4)

Brief dossier

Parma Perm, Russia

Founded: 2012
Colors: blue, white
Home court: UPS Molot (7,000)
CEO: Alexander Bashminov
Head coach: Evgeny Pashutin
Website: parmabasket.ru
Trophy case: 2-time Russian Cup winner (2016, 19), SuperLeague 1 bronze winner (2016)