Despite missing out on a place in next season’s EuroLeague, Sergey Karasev has declared his loyalties to Zenit St. Petersburg for next season.
Zenit were eliminated in the EuroCup quarter-finals by fellow Russians Lokomotiv Kuban and today, they lost to Khimki in a deciding Game 5 of the VTB semifinal series.
They went down 3-2, despite owning a 2-0 leading and owning home court advantage.
Via Eurohoops:
“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.
