EXCHANGE OF OPINIONS:

Rimas Kurtinaitis:

– BC Donetsk is one of the leaders of Ukrainian Superleague and Eurocup, the team shows nice basketball. Notable that Obradovic’s squad defeated ASVEL on the road that is not an easy thing. Donetsk is a European team with aggressive defense and rapid attacks. Kravtsov is a very talented young center, as well as the leaders Curry, Radenovic and Avdalovic. Ukrainian league is very interesting, it’s a tough competition and local squads show good results.

Egor Vyaltsev:

– Both Khimki and Donetsk are the leaders of Eurocup Last 16 group J and the game between these teams will be a principal one. We expect tough and aggressive defense and prepare for this meeting very seriously. Curry is the leader of Donetsk, he shows good skills and perfect results, Russian fans know him since his participation in VTB United league last year with Azovmash. The fact that our opponent entered Last-16 says about strength of Ukrainian basketball.

BC DONETSK (Donetsk, Ukraine)

Founded in 2006
Team colors: white, black and orange
Arena: Druzhba Palace of Sports (4700 seats)
Honors: Ukrainian 1 Liga winner (2007), Ukrainian Higher League winner (2008), Ukrainian Superleague regular season champion (2011), Ukrainian Superleague finalist (2009, 2011)
Official web-site: bc.donetsk.ua

HISTORY

Basketball already had a long tradition in Donetsk, where Shakhtar had previously reached the Ukrainian League finals and took part in European club competition games throughout the 1990s. In 2006, Valery Plekhanov founded BC Donetsk club and became its first head coach in the Ukrainian third division. Donetsk left no doubt about its power, winning all 34 games that season to achieve promotion to the next level.

Donetsk made its European club competitions debut in 2008-09 but lost against Proteas EKA AEL of Cyprus in the EuroChallenge qualifying round. Back in Ukraine, with Andres Rodriguez, P.J. Tucker and Demetrius Alexander as its stars, Donetsk stormed into the league finals but could not get past Azovmash to the crown. The club returned to the EuroChallenge in 2009-10 but could not survive the first group stage.

Donetsk folded in January 2010, only to reappear last season. An ambitious project was re-launched with Sasa Obradovic as head coach and Luis Flores, Jasmin Hukic, J.K. Edwards and Branko Cvetkovic as the main players. Donetsk delivered from the very beginning and won the regular season with a 37-11 record. The team then swept its playoffs series against Kryvbasbasket and Hoverla to reach the finals against Budivelnik. Despite falling behind 3-2 in the best-of-seven series, Budivelnik ended up rallying to win the title. Although it was left a step away from glory again, that won't prevent Donetsk from remaining ambitious into the future.

SEASON 2011/2012

In Eurocup 2011/2012 regular season BC Donetsk played in Group A, eventually ranked first with 5 wins and 1 loss (to BCM Gravelines). The Ukrainian club entered Eurocup Last-16 Group J with BC Khimki, ARIS BSA 2003 and ASVEL Basket. First two meetings with ASVEL and ARIS BSA were unsuccessful for the Ukrainians – as on the road in France, as at home BC Donetsk scored confident victories.

BC Donetsk is one of the current Ukrainian Superleague leaders. In national championship after 24 games the club ranks second with 18 wins and 6 losses.

ROSTER

The leaders of the club are foreigners: Americans Ramel Curry (16.8 ppg, 4.3. rbs, 3.3 ast, 1.4 stl), Michael Lee (10.3ppg, 7.6 rbs), Serbians Ivan Radenovic (11.0 ppg, 5.0 rbs) and Vule Avdalovic (10.5 ppg, 3.5 rbs).

№	Player	Position	Height	Birthday	Nationality
4	Maksym Pustozvonov	F	200	1987	Ukraine
5	Michael Lee	F	207	1986	USA
7	Ramel Curry	G	191	1980	USA
8	Vojdan Stojanovski	G	194	1987	Macedonia
9	Vule Avdalovic	G	189	1981	Serbia
10	Oleksandr Antypov	F	197	1995	Ukraine
11	Oleksandr Lypovyy	G	199	1991	Ukraine
12	Ivan Radenovic	F	208	1984	Serbia
14	Oleg Saltovets	F	202	1977	Ukraine
15	Vitaliy Kovalenko	F	201	1984	Ukraine
21	Dmitro Gliebov	F	198	1988	Ukraine
34	Igor Boyarkin	G	177	1995	Ukraine
41	Darnell Jackson	F	203	1985	USA
55	Viacheslav Kravtsov	C	210	1987	Ukraine
–	Vladlen Berezhnyi	F	197	1995	Ukraine

Head coach: Sasa Obradovic (Serbia)