Messina to receive Gomelski Trophy as top coach

One of the great minds of modern basketball, Ettore Messina of CSKA Moscow, will be awarded the Aleksander Gomelski Coach of the Year Trophy for 2005-06 when the draw for a new Euroleague season takes place on September 14 in Athens, Greece. In his first season in Moscow, Messina led CSKA on a thrilling run to the Euroleague title, the club's first in 35 years. Messina and CSKA also captured the Russian League and Russian Cup titles, becoming that country's first triple-crown winner ever. Messina's debut season in Moscow paid high tribute to the legend after whom the award is named, the late Aleksander Gomelski, who was head coach the last time CSKA won the continental crown, in 1971. Although he was still club president when CSKA hired Messina last summer, Mr. Gomelski passed away six weeks later, on August 16, 2005, at age 77. Messina was voted the winner of the award by a combined panel of his peers, the 24 coaches who finished the Euroleague's 2005-06 season, plus 30 expert journalists from 13 countries around the continent.