Noah Vonleh: "It feels great to be back on the court and to play in Saint Petersburg for the first time"
Blue-White-Sky Blues center Noah Vonleh shared his emotions about his first game in front of Saint Petersburg fans in an interview with Zenit TV and named the key reasons for their success in the match against Samara (95:56).
— Noa, congratulations on the win. It was your first game in St. Petersburg. What do you feel after your debut in front of the Zenit fans?
— It feels great. Like I said before, I missed last season because I was dealing with stuff with FIBA and a case I had going on. It feels great to be back on the court. Playing here in Russia for the first time competing here in St. Petersburg. Got a great group of guys. It's fun competing with them. Everybody's sharing the ball. Everybody's making each other better and it's fun. I love it.
— Did you feel that the whole game tonight was so fully under our control?
— Yeah, we can control the game from the jump. I mean we got to an early lead coach emphasized that this team hasn't won a game this season. But they play hard don't play around with the game and we just came into the game and put our imprint on the game early.
— It's your third game in just seven days. Is it really tough after such a long break in your career?
— No, it's not tough because as I was going through all that stuff, I was still training. I was doing I was doing lift. I was lifting five times a week boxing five days a week and playing pickup every time I got the chance and opportunity. And I'm working on my basketball skills with my training back home. So I was staying sharp the whole time and that's why I feel like I'm kind of getting transitioned pretty well over here.
— What do you think worked best for the team tonight?
— Tonight, just moving the ball, looking for the open shots and just being aggressive. Everybody's being aggressive, looking for their shot and moving the ball and that's what really helped us.
— Next game we have on Saturday against Enisey. What do you expect from this game?
— I heard in the locker room that we lost to this team before but we had the injury bug a lot of guys were down. We got most of our roster back. We're still missing Andre, but I think we just got to come with the same mentality go out there, punch first and leave our imprint on the game, go out there and win the game.
— You know simultaneously with our game Zenit-2 play day in our Academy and young guys advanced to the Russian Cup quarterfinals for the first time in our Academy history. Could you congratulate them on this win? Because this would be really important for them.
— Congratulations fellas. Keep working hard. Keep striving for greatness. I actually was in the gym watching the game a little bit the other day and saw them get a victory. So yeah, just keep working hard and inspired to be great.
