Ahead of the "final eight"

The home semi-final tournament of the ASB super League championship with the participation of the six best teams of the West and East zones was completed without defeats by the women's basketball team of the Volga region Academy. In early March, our girls in Ivanovo will play in the "final eight". The composition of the final eight teams has not yet been determined. At the end of the week in Yoshkar-Ola was played one of the two additional permits for teams that took place in the regular season at the bottom of the standings zones "West" and "East". The tournament was won by "University-Ugra" from Surgut. From 21 to 23 February in Krasnodar will determine the eighth participant of the final. The favorites in the fight for the" burning " ticket are the teams of Saratov state University and Kuban state technological University. With some of them and will likely play in the first match in Ivanovo Volga Academy team, which completed the semi-final stage on the second line. After the start defeat of the team "NSU Lesgaft" our girls beat the hosts of the "final eight", the team of the Ivanovo state University of chemical technology (75:60), and then took over the Chuvash state University (77:59). From the first place went to the "final eight" rivals of our students in the zone "East" - the Team of the College of Olympic reserve of the Perm region (COR PK), also won all their matches in Kazan. Recall that in one of the paired home matches with the Perm basketball players in the national team of Volga region Academy of lost, which determined the final placement of teams in the standings of a zone "the East". In the second match "academicians" took revenge. However, the head coach of our team, Natalia Kuleshova, following the results of two meetings, sent a letter to the ASB office with a request to consider the possibility of applying disciplinary sanctions to the mentor of Perm students and his assistants for incorrect behavior during the matches. According to Natalia Kuleshovoj, after the semi-finals at the headquarters of ASB, has already sent a collective letter to the coaches of teams participating in the tournament. However, Natalia highly appreciates the sports level of the main competitors in the fight for the title: - Although the Perm team is certainly strong. Especially their leader Polina Matushkina, gaining 40-50 points per game. Fast, hitting, physically strong, experienced and smart, able to expose themselves and put pressure on the judges. In the second game we managed to cover it. But in the final, a lot will depend on how the judges respond to her appeals. If you take everything at face value, all have to hard. - How do you assess the performance of your players in General?  I'm not happy with everyone. Physically, we were not ready. We lost in the third game. Perhaps it was said that we were preparing with an eye to the final eight. Lack of conditions affected a large number of technical defects. In the game with the Cheboksary team 31 mistakes were made. I am surprised how we won the match with such statistics. However, for us today the most important rival – the nearest. We intend to move from game to game without making plans for the final.