RUS - Blatt has Karasev in preliminary squad

MOSCOW (Olympic Qualifying Tournament) - Russia coach David Blatt has included 18-year-old Sergey Karasev in a 16-man preliminary squad for the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament.

Karasev, who will be in action this weekend with Triumph Lyubertsy at the EuroChallenge Final Four in Debrecen, Hungary, captured a bronze medal at last year’s FIBA U19 World Championship in Riga, Latvia.

He is the son of the former point guard of Russia, Vasily Karasev, the coach of Triumph.

Most of the players that captured a bronze medal at EuroBasket 2011 are on Blatt’s list, including superstar Andrei Kirilenko and his CSKA Moscow teammates Viktor Khryapa, Evgeny Voronov, Andrey Vorontsevich, Alexey Shved, Sasha Kaun and Anton Ponkrashov.

CSKA Moscow will play at the Turkish Airlines Euroleague Final Four in Istanbul on 11-13 May.

While Kirilenko has been voted the top defensive player in the Euroleague in his first season back on the old continent following a decade in the NBA with the Utah Jazz, Shved has continued to make strides since delivering one eye-popping performance after another at last year’s EuroBasket in Lithuania.

The 1.95m shooting guard is getting to play a lot for coach Jonas Kazlauskas and is averaging 10.7 points and 3.2 assists in the Euroleague.

Timofey Mozgov is in the national team again.

The 2.16m center has seen an increase in playing time in the NBA this season.

Denver Nuggets coach George Karl has used him almost 16 minutes per game and Mozgov has averaged 5.2 points, 4.1 rebounds and 0.9 blocks.

Russia will be in Group C with the Dominican Republic and Korea at the 12-team OQT (2-8 July), where three places for the London Games will be claimed.

The first training camp for Blatt’s squad is in Moscow on 31 May.

Russia will then travel to Slovenia on 3 June and will have friendly games against the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (14 June) and Greece (16 June).

The squad’s last training camp will be in the United States.

They will have friendly games against Great Britain (25 and 28 June) and Lithuania (27 June).

Russia preliminary squad: Semen Antonov, Sergey Bykov, Eugeny Voronov, Andrey Vorontsevich, Maxim Grigoryev, Sergey Karasev, Sasha Kaun, Andrei Kirilenko, Timofey Mozgov, Sergey Monya, Anton Ponkrashov, Vitaly Fridzon, Dmitry Khvostov, Viktor Khryapa, Alexey Shved and Artem Yakovenko.

FIBA