The Volga Region University of Physical Education, Sport and Tourism returns to the RZD Student Basketball Association's Higher League.
"Last season we were not going to leave Studliga, but before the start of the championship we had serious changes in the coaching staff. The process of finding a new coach is not a quick one - which is why we decided not to take the risk of applying. We were playing in Tatarstan division, where we took first place, won the championship and Tatarstan Cup, also took part in the international tournament in Uzbekistan, and lost only to the national team of the Republic.
Now we have a very different squad from last year - Matvey Yan, Danila Paukov and Denis Barannikov have finished their studies, but young freshmen have taken their place, plus we intend to invite players from other universities to reinforce them.
Our goals for the new season are very high: we have a good coach [Alexander Shagan], and we also found an opportunity to play in the Higher League, so we will attract more experienced student players. At the same time we understand that the level of the league has risen considerably during the year of our absence, but that won't prevent us from making it to the Final Eight of the Russian Railways Student League," said Anton Zanin, head of the sport events department of Volga Region State University, in his interview for the ASB.
Today, on October 7, the men's basketball team of RPF-University of Sports will play their first game in the opening round of the RZD Student League first round in Stavropol against the host team BC "Southern Elephant-SKFU" (October 7 at 18:00). And also the University will face Simferopol Basketball Club Gryphons-KFU (October 8, 18:00) and Krasnodar BC Sparta-KubGTU (October 9, 18:00).
It should be noted that during the season the teams will have to play three rounds, earning ranking points. Each round is a single round-robin tournament against teams in their group. The University of Sports team is in 'Group B' along with GUTiD (St. Petersburg), SKFU (Stavropol), KFU (Simferopol), KubGTU (Krasnodar), RUS (Moscow) and the Perm Territory team (Perm Region).
