«Вита» Тбилиси, Грузия vs. ЦСКА Москва, Россия

In their Regular Season opener CSKA Moscow defeated Vita Tbilisi on the road - 93:60. The Red and Blue established themselves early and never lost control of the game. Vita remained in contention up until the middle of the 3rd quarter, but in the end CSKA, led by Nando de Colo and Vitaliy Fridzon, proved to be too much for the Georgian team.

The Plot.
The city of Tbilisi knows a thing or two about basketball on a big stage, the local Dynamo team won the Soviet championship four times. It is up to Vita to bring the winning tradition back to Georgia, this time competing in VTB United League. In their interviews before the game CSKA’s players and team staff expressed their excitement about being in the beautiful capital city of Georgia, a place where the fans know and love the game of basketball. Vita’s debut in the League is a win-win situation for everybody.

Pavel Googe, Tbilisi’s head coach, said he expects his team to peak around the New Year and just expects his team to go through all the necessary process of becoming a well-organized unit on and off the floor, therefore games against one of the top teams on the Continent are of the outmost importance in terms of the team’s growth. Vita handled this difficult task rather well.

The starting five of the home team included only Georgian players, who got knocked down by a 13:0 run by the Euroleague heavyweight. However, Vita managed to bounce back as Henry was putting on a show – hit ridiculous shots, dished out dimes left and right and even got a spectacular chase down blocked shot on the unsuspecting Nando de Colo.

Pavel Googe’s team were truly in contention for a better part of the ballgame and even had scoring runs, like when they went 9:0 in the first or won a couple of stretches in the third quarter, as a result cutting the lead to manageable eleven points — 60:49. But it just wasn’t in the stars for Vita that night, at least that’s what Fridzon and de Colo thought. Vitaly and Nando sparked their team’s final run and put away Vita for good.

The Hero.
Nando de Colo. French guard was his usual self – a team’s engine that keeps on going. When CSKA’s offense stalled in the third period Nando took matters into his own hands, led his teammates and helped to erase all doubts regarding the game’s outcome.

The Number.
16 – The age of Gogi Bitadze. Vita’s youngest player also became the youngest player ever to debut in the VTB United League, beating a record held by Rodions Kurtsus of VEF Riga.

The Quote.
Dimitris Itouidis, CSKA’s head coach.
Unfortunately we were missing several players today due to injuries, but we did all the necessary things to prepare for the game nonetheless. We were the better team. My job was to divide the playing time between players. We also wanted to try a few things and at times we were able to do that tonight. I hope that will help us down the road.