By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
The major 2016/2017 goal for Zenit St. Petersburg was to gain entrance in next season’s EuroLeague. It could be achieved either by winning the EuroCup or by advancing to the VTB League Finals, in the condition that CSKA Moscow would be the other finalist.
That was the target for Sergey Karasev as well who was looking forward to compete in EuroLeague, one way or another. But things didn’t go as planned for him and the rest of his squad.
Zenit was eliminated in the EuroCup quarterfinals by fellow Russians Lokomotiv Kuban and today, it lost to Khimki in Game 5 of the VTB semifinal series. They went down 3-2, despite initially leading 0-2 and owning home court advantage.
“It’s a shame that we lost. Maybe it was because of fatigue,” the 23-year-old swingman said to Russian news agency TASS. “But this means that next year we will make a step forward. The eyes of the guys are burning. The team is young.”
Prior to the beginning of the season, Karasev had stated that his ambition was to compete in EuroLeague in order to attract some new-found attention from the NBA. He was hoping that a chance to show his quality in at least 30 games of the top-tier European competition would provide a gateway for his return to the best league in the planet.
While Zenit will most likely compete in EuroCup in 2017/2018, this doesn’t change anything regarding his status in the team since he’s determined to honor the second year remaining in the deal he penned last summer.
“I have another year of contract with Zenit and I don’t plan to go anywhere”, he said.