Andre Roberson: "Come together as a unit and be great again"

Zenit forward Andre Roberson, in an interview with the club’s media team, spoke about the squad’s psychological state and also shared details of the preparation for the home game against UNICS. The game against the Kazan side will take place tomorrow, April 15, on the court of the CSC Arena. Tip-off is at 19:30 St. Petersburg time. Tickets are available on the official website of the Blue-White-Sky Blues.

— First of all, how did the team cope with the disappointing performance in the WINLINE Basket Cup Final Four? How difficult is it to reset emotionally at a moment like this?

— It was obviously tough, especially to go ahead and disappoint our home fans. And I think we all kind of know that as players, coaches, and organization, we was all disappointed in our performance, but we know it's not over yet. And we kind of had a reset day of actually looking at ourselves in the mirror and get back to the draw board of what we need to do individually. Come together as a unit and be great again. So I think we did that pretty well these last couple of days and hopefully we can go out there and show up to the last two games and go into the playoffs.

— Tomorrow is the game against UNICS, and the previous two meetings in Kazan went in Zenit’s favor. How is the preparation going? What could be the key factor in the upcoming game?

— It's gonna be crucial of us playing together, sticking together through adversity. Obviously, we understand it's a tough time for us right now, but at the same time, we understand we have something great that we wanna achieve. So we're not giving up and we're gonna go out there and play hard. Play all 40 minutes with as much energy and play together. That's ultimately what we need to do. We gonna be X's and O's, but it means nothing without effort and unity. So that's what we're going to try and exemplify out there tomorrow.

— The opponent has already secured second place and is weakened by injuries. Will this affect your approach to the match in any way?

— No, not really. I think we understand It doesn't matter who you put in front of us if we take care of what we need to take care of as a team and as a unit. We're more worried about ourselves than we are about our opponents, so if we take care of ourselves, it doesn't matter who's in front of us, I think we'll win and come out on top. That's just kind of where my mindset's at. It doesn't really matter who we have in the future, we need to take care of it right now.

— What would you like to say to the St. Petersburg fans ahead of tomorrow’s game?

— Don't give up on us yet. I think there's still a lot of basketball to play. And I think at the end of the season you guys are going to be happy with the result of ultimately trying to win a championship. Going to win a championship!