BC UNICS

UNICS Kazan
UNICS Kazan logo
Leagues	PBL Euroleague VTB United League
Founded	1991
History	1991 - present
Arena	Basket Hall Arena (capacity: 7,500)
Location	Kazan, Russia
Team colors	Green and White
President	Yevgeny Bogachev
Head coach	Evgeniy Pashutin
Championships	2 Russian Cups (2003; 2009) 1 North European Basketball League (2003) 1FIBA Europe League (2004) 1 Eurocup (2011)
Website	unics.ru
Home Away

UNICS Kazan is a professional basketball club in Kazan, Russia playing in the PBL. Their home arena is Basket Hall Arena. Though officially the professional club was founded in 1991 (when began its appearance at the lowest of pro leagues), UNICS traces its origin back to KSU's college team Burevestnik which participated in USSR student championships since 1957 winning all-Soviet college title twice - in 1965 and 1970. Because of this the name 'UNICS' is quite an abbreviation - UNI(versity), C(ulture), S(port).

In 1997 it was promoted to the Russian Basketball Super League 'A', the top Russian league. A year later Yevgeny Bogachev, the chairman of the National Bank of the Republic of Tatarstan, became the President of the club.

History

UNICS Kazan has gone a long way towards helping Russian basketball since the club was established in 1991. Between 1994 and 1997, UNICS secured a berth in Russia's first division, and then made a smashing debut, establishing itself among the top five teams in the country. UNICS already played European competitions in 1997, but the new millennium happened to be a turning point for the club. The team placed second to CSKA in the Russian Basketball Super League in 2001 and 2002, the year in which it also reached the Saporta Cup semifinals, losing against Maroussi in the semifinals. UNICS first title was the Russian Cup in March 2003, with an electrifying 81-82 overtime victory over CSKA. UNICS fans did not have to wait long to see their team win a European title, too. Kazan hosted the FIBA Europe League final four, named now FIBA EuroCup, in April 2004 and UNICS made sure of its opportunity. UNICS signed Saulius Štombergas, Eurelijus Žukauskas or Chris Anstey, won its regular season group and advanced to the final four on its own floor, where it was crowned the FIBA Europe League champion as MVP Martin Müürsepp scored 22 points in an 87-63 win over Maroussi in the title game. By 2005-06, UNICS went one level up and made its ULEB Cup debut, tying the best regular season record in the competition's history. Things turned south quickly, as it lost at home against Roma for the only time all season in the eighth finals’ second leg and crashed out earlier than expected. UNICS got stronger for last season, keeping the core group of the previous seasons side while adding Darjuš Lavrinovič to reunite with twin brother Kšyštof Lavrinovič in a twin towers set full of talent. The team made it to the ULEB Cup semifinals before losing to eventual champs Real Madrid. It also returned to the Russian League finals, losing against perennial champion CSKA. UNICS is back in the ULEB Cup with the only goal to reach even higher and make the city of Kazan proud of its mighty basketball team.

Recent seasons

Season	Division	Regular	Play-off	Cup	Europe	Regional
1997-98	Superleague A	5th (West)	7th	n/a	Korać Cup Group stage	n/a
1998-99	Superleague A	5th	5th	n/a	Saporta Cup 1/16 Finals	n/a
1999-00	Superleague A	3rd	Bronze	n/p	Korać Cup 1/16 Finals	n/p
2000-01	Superleague A	2nd	Silver	n/a	Saporta Cup 1/2 Finals	n/p
2001-02	Superleague A	2nd	Silver	n/a	Saporta Cup 1/4 Finals	n/p
2002-03	Superleague A	3rd	Bronze	Winner	FIBA Champions Cup 1/4 Finals	NEBL Winner
2003-04	Superleague A	2nd	Silver	3rd	FIBA Europe League Winner	n/a
2004-05	Superleague A	3rd	Bronze	Finalist	FIBA Europe League 1/4 Finals	n/a
2005-06	Superleague A	4th	4th	3rd	ULEB Cup 1/8 Finals	n/a
2006-07	Superleague A	2nd	Silver	Finalist	ULEB Cup 1/2 Finals	n/a
2007-08	Superleague A	3rd	6th	1/2 Finals	ULEB Cup 1/4 Finals (Final Eight)	n/a
2008-09	Superleague A	4th	Bronze	Winner	ULEB Eurocup Top-16 stage	n/p
2009-10	Superleague A	3rd	Bronze	Finalist	ULEB Eurocup Top-16 stage	VTB League Finalist
2010-11	PBL	1st	Bronze	n/p	ULEB Eurocup Winner	VTB League 3rd

Roster

Depth Chart

Pos.	Starter	Bench	Bench	Reserve
C	Nathan Jawai	Aleksey Savrasenko
PF	Vladimir Veremeenko	Mike Wilkinson	Pyotr Gubanov
SF	Kelly McCarty	Igor Zamanski
SG	Terrell Lyday	Henry Domercant	Zakhar Pashutin
PG	Marcus Williams	Petr Samoylenko	Dmitri Golovin

Notable Russian players

bold - FIBA World and FIBA Europe champions and medalists

• Ruslan Avleev (1997-01, 04-06) - 301 games, 19.2 ppg;
• Victor Kurilchuk (1997-00) - 201 games, 8.9 ppg;
• Eduard Soobtsokov (1997-00) - 204 games, 7 ppg;
• Petr Samoylenko (1998-07, 08-11) - 669 games, 6.1 ppg;
• Andrey Sepelev (1998–99) - 53 games, 11 ppg;
• Anton Yudin (1999-03, 04-06) - 243 games, 10.7 ppg;
• Alexander Petrenko (1999-00) - 58 games, 13.2 ppg;
• Andrey Kornev (1999-01) - 76 games, 6.1 ppg;
• Aleksandr Gutorov (1999-00) - 35 games, 8.4 ppg;
• Evgeniy Pashutin (2000–02) - 86 games, 8.5 ppg;
• Igor Grachev (2000–02) - 74 games, 8.6 ppg;
• Valentin Kubrakov (2000–02, 03-04) - 121 games, 8.5 ppg;

• Igor Zamansky (2001–03, 08-11) - 201 games, 5.8 ppg;
• Igor Kudelin (2002–03, 06-07) - 35 games, 8.1 ppg;
• Sergei Chikalkin (2002–03, 05-09) - 187 games, 10.6 ppg;
• Andrei Fetisov (2002–03) - 20 games, 6.2 ppg;
• Alexander Miloserdov (2003–05, 06-07) - 125 games, 9.3 ppg;
• Viktor Keirou (2003–05, 07-08) - 83 games, 5.4 ppg;
• Sergei Toporov (2004–06) - 93 games, 7.3 ppg;
• Vadim Panin (2006–07) - 35 games, 6.1 ppg;
• Dmitri Sokolov (2006–09) - 128 games, 6.8 ppg;
• Nikolay Padius (2007–08, 10-11) - 59 games, 5.3 ppg;
• Fedor Likholitov (2009–10) - 10 games, 2.5 ppg;
• Zakhar Pashutin (2010–11) - 63 games, 5.8 ppg;

Notable foreign players

bold - former NBA players; Olympics, FIBA World and FIBA Europe champions and medalists

USA

• Glenn Wisby (2000–01) - 51 games, 10.4 ppg;
• Anthony Bonner (2001–02) - 8 games, 14.9 ppg;
• Michael McDonald (2001–02) - 45 games; 12.2 ppg;
• Acie Earl (2001–02) - 30 games, 11.8 ppg;
• Dickey Simpkins* (2002–03) - 38 games, 12.3 ppg;
• Kebu Stewart (2002–03) - 18 games, 8.3 ppg;
• Lamar Greer (2003–04) - 41 games; 12 ppg;
• Joe Ira Clark (2004–05) - 41 games, 7.8 ppg;
• Paul Shirley (2004–05) - 9 games, 4.9 ppg;
• Shammond Williams (2004–05) - 57 games, 17.1 ppg;
• Travis Best (2005–06) - 40 games, 11.5 ppg;
• Samaki Walker* (2005–06) - 4 games, 7 ppg;
• Sam Clancy, Jr. (2005–06) - 30 games, 4 ppg;
• Jarod Stevenson (2006–07) - 32 games; 10.4 ppg;
• Mateen Cleaves (2006–07) - 11 games, 5 ppg;
• Jamal McCullough (2006–08) - 80 games, 6.8 ppg;
• Tariq Kirksay (2007–09) - 95 games, 9.3 ppg;
• Joseph Forte (2007–08) - 11 games, 8.4 ppg;
• Marc Jackson (2008–09) - 19 games, 6.5 ppg;
• Terrell Lyday (2008–11) - 150 games, 13.2 ppg;
• Kelly McCarty (2010–11) - 53 games, 12.0 ppg;
• Ricky Minard (2010–11) - 48 games, 7.4 pts;

Australia

• Chris Anstey (2003–05) - 93 games, 13.1 ppg;

Europe

• Slobodan Šljivančanin (1998-00) - 117 games, 10 ppg;
• Leonid Yailo (2000–01) - 50 games, 13.5 ppg;
• Branislav Vićentić (2001–02) - 29 games, 10.4 ppg;
• Oliver Popović (2001–03) - 80 games, 14.6 ppg;
• Damir Mršić (2002–03) - 31 games, 7.7 ppg;
• Valery Dayneko (2002–03) - 35 games, 10 ppg;
• Eurelijus Žukauskas (2002–04) - 78 games, 10 ppg;
• Mykola Khryapa (2003–05) - 86 games, 6.1 ppg;
• Martin Müürsepp (2003–04, 05-06) - 86 games, 11.3 ppg;
• Saulius Štombergas (2003–04, 05-07, 09-10) - 144 games, 11 ppg;
• Stevan Nađfeji (2004–05) - 40 games, 7.4 ppg;
• Kaspars Kambala (2004–05) - 54 games, 14.5 ppg;
• Egor Mesheryakov (2005–07) - 93 games, 10.2 ppg;
• Kšyštof Lavrinovič (2005–07) - 78 games, 12.7 ppg;
• Darjuš Lavrinovič (2006–08) - 68 games, 12.9 ppg;
• Duško Savanović (2006–08) - 71 games, 10.3 ppg;
• Marko Tušek (2007–08) - 36 games, 10.1 ppg;
• Krešimir Lončar (2008–10) - 114 games, 11.8 ppg;
• Marko Popović (2008–11) - 142 games, 13.9 ppg;
• Vladimir Veremeenko (2008–11) - 151 games, 8.5 ppg;
• Maciej Lampe (2009–11) - 96 games, 15.9 ppg;
• Hasan Rizvić (2010–11) - 64 games, 5.4 ppg;
• Slavko Vraneš (2010–11) - 39 games, 2.6 ppg;

Milan Gurović (2004) and Hüseyin Beşok (2005) shortly were under contract with UNICS Kazan, but never played a single game for the team.

(*) former NBA champions

Coaches

bold - Olympics, FIBA World and FIBA Europe champions and medalists

• Aleksandr Zryadchikov - 1994-96;
• Georgy Korolev - 1996-98;
• Dragan Višnjevac - 1998;
• Yevgeny Kovalenko - 1998-00;
• Stanislav Eremin - 2000-06;
• Antanas Sireika - 2006-08;
• Aco Petrović - 2008-09;
• Valdemaras Chomičius - 2009-10;
• Evgeniy Pashutin - 2010–present;

External links

• Official Site Template:Ru icon
• Eurobasket.com Team Info