# BC UNICS

BC UNICS (Russian: БК УНИКС) is a professional basketball club in Kazan, Russia, that plays in the VTB United League, and formerly played in the EuroLeague. On February 28, 2022, EuroLeague Basketball suspended the team because of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Their home arena is Basket-Hall Kazan.

## History
### 1991-1999

UNICS was established in 1991. Though officially the club's men's professional club was founded in 1991 (when it first began to play in the lowest level of the national pro leagues), UNICS traces its origins back to KSU's college team Burevestnik, which participated in the USSR student championships from 1957. Because of this, the name 'UNICS' is an abbreviation – UNIversity, Culture, Sport.
Between 1994 and 1997, UNICS secured a berth in Russia's first division. In 1997, UNICS was promoted to the Russian Basketball Super League A, which was at the time the top-tier level Russian league. A year later, Yevgeny Bogachev, the chairman of the National Bank of the Tatarstan, became the president of the club.

### 2000-2019

The team placed second to CSKA in the Russian Basketball Super League in 2001 and 2002, a year in which it also reached the Saporta Cup semifinals, losing against the Greek club Maroussi in the semifinals. UNICS' first title was the Russian Cup in March 2003, with an 81–82 overtime victory over CSKA. Kazan hosted the FIBA Europe League final four, which was eventually named the FIBA EuroChallenge, in April 2004. UNICS won its regular season group, and advanced to the final four, where the club was crowned the FIBA Europe League champions. The MVP of the tournament's final four. By the 2005–06 season, UNICS went one level up, and made its ULEB Cup (later named EuroCup) debut. However, things turned south quickly, as UNICS lost at home against Roma in the tournament's eighth finals’ second leg, and crashed out. The team the next season made it to the ULEB Cup semifinals, before losing to the eventual league champs Real Madrid. It also returned to the Russian League finals, losing against CSKA.
In the 2007–08 season, UNICS made it to the ULEB Cup (now called EuroCup) Final Eight, but fell to Akasvayu Girona in the quarterfinals. UNICS finally broke through in the EuroCup in the 2010–11 season, by winning its regular season and Last 16 groups, before sweeping its quarterfinal series against Pepsi Caserta. UNICS beat KK Cedevita 87–66, in the semifinals, behind 27 points from Terrell Lyday, and registered a 92–77 win against Cajasol Sevilla, in the title game. Marko Popović had a EuroCup Finals record of 11 assists, to lead UNICS to the title. In the Russian League, UNICS had a 21–6 record, to finish the regular season atop the standings, but then went out in the playoff semifinals, after a five-game duel against BC Khimki. The club then competed in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague in the following season. It made its EuroLeague debut in the 2011–12 season. In the Russian League it finished first at the end of the regular season, and reached the playoff semifinals.

### 2020-present

Jarrell Brantley left the team in early 2022 due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The team is suing him for $250,000, and trying to prevent him from signing with a G League team. Similarly, Americans Isaiah Canaan, John Brown, and John Holland left the team after the invasion.
On February 28, 2022, EuroLeague Basketball suspended the team because of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Lorenzo Brown and Marco Spissu decided not to break their contracts and stayed with the team until the end of VTB League.

## Honours
### Domestic competitions

* VTB United League
    Champions (1): 2023
* Russian Cups
    Champions (3): 2003, 2009, 2014

### European competitions

* EuroCup
    Champions (1): 2011
* EuroChallenge
    Champions (1): 2004
* North European League
    Champions (1): 2003

## Season by season

| Season | Tier | Division | Pos. | Russian Cup | European competitions | European competitions | Other competitions | Other competitions |
| 1997–98 | 1 | Superleague A | 7th | | 3 Korać Cup | GS | | |
| 1998–99 | 1 | Superleague A | 5th | | 2 Saporta Cup | R32 | | |
| 1999–00 | 1 | Superleague A | 3rd | | 3 Korać Cup | EF | | |
| 2000–01 | 1 | Superleague A | 2nd | | 2 Saporta Cup | SF | | |
| 2001–02 | 1 | Superleague A | 2nd | | 2 Saporta Cup | QF | | |
| 2002–03 | 1 | Superleague A | 3rd | Winner | 3 FIBA Champions Cup | QF | NEBL | C |
| 2003–04 | 1 | Superleague A | 2nd | Third place | 3 FIBA Europe League | C | | |
| 2004–05 | 1 | Superleague A | 3rd | Runner-up | 3 FIBA Europe League | QF | | |
| 2005–06 | 1 | Superleague A | 4th | Third place | 2 ULEB Cup | EF | | |
| 2006–07 | 1 | Superleague A | 2nd | Runner-up | 2 ULEB Cup | QF | | |
| 2007–08 | 1 | Superleague A | 6th | Semifinals | 2 ULEB Cup | QF | | |
| 2008–09 | 1 | Superleague A | 3rd | Winner | 2 Eurocup | T16 | | |
| 2009–10 | 1 | Superleague A | 3rd | Runner-up | 2 Eurocup | T16 | United League | RU |
| 2010–11 | 1 | PBL | 3rd | | 1 Euroleague | QR2 | United League | 3rd |
| 2010–11 | 1 | PBL | 3rd | | 2 Eurocup | C | United League | 3rd |
| 2011–12 | 1 | PBL | 5th | | 1 Euroleague | QF | United League | RU |
| 2012–13 | 1 | PBL | 6th | | 1 Euroleague | QR2 | United League | QF |
| 2012–13 | 1 | PBL | 6th | | 2 Eurocup | QF | United League | QF |
| 2013–14 | 1 | VTB United League | 3rd | Winner | 2 Eurocup | RU | | |
| 2014–15 | 1 | VTB United League | 6th | Second qualifying | 1 Euroleague | RS | | |
| 2014–15 | 1 | VTB United League | 6th | Second qualifying | 2 Eurocup | SF | | |
| 2015–16 | 1 | VTB United League | 2nd | First qualifying | 2 Eurocup | EF | | |
| 2016–17 | 1 | VTB United League | 5th | Round of 64 | 1 EuroLeague | RS | | |
| 2017–18 | 1 | VTB United League | 4th | | 2 EuroCup | QF | | |
| 2018–19 | 1 | VTB United League | 3rd | First round | 2 EuroCup | SF | | |
| 2019–20 | 1 | VTB United League | 4th | | 2 EuroCup | R16 | | |
| 2020–21 | 1 | VTB United League | 2nd | | 2 EuroCup | RU | | |
| 2021–22 | 1 | VTB United League | 3rd | | 1 EuroLeague | SP | United League Supercup | 3rd |
| 2022–23 | 1 | VTB United League | 1st | | | | United League Supercup | 7th |

## Players
### Current roster

Note: Flags indicate national team eligibility at FIBA-sanctioned events. Players may hold other non-FIBA nationalities not displayed.

### Depth chart

| Pos. | Starting 5 | Bench 1 | Bench 2 |
| C | Ismaël Bako | Jalen Reynolds | |
| PF | Andrey Lopatin | Louis Labeyrie | Aleksandr Stulenkov |
| SF | DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell | Dmitry Kulagin | Sergey Toporov |
| SG | Mikhail Belenitskii | Artem Komolov | Aleksandr Platunov |
| PG | Tony Taylor | Marcos Knight | |

## Notable players

Note: Flags indicate national team eligibility at FIBA-sanctioned events. Players may hold other non-FIBA nationalities not displayed.
* Criteria
* To appear in this section a player must have either:
* Set a club record or won an individual award while at the club
* Played at least one official international match for their national team at any time
* Played at least one official NBA match at any time.

### Russian

* Ruslan Avleev (1997–01, 04–06) – 301 games, 19.2 ppg;
* Petr Samoylenko (1998–07, 08–13) – 774 games, 5.8 ppg;
* Alexander Petrenko (1999–00) – 58 games, 13.2 ppg;
* Evgeniy Pashutin (2000–02) – 86 games, 8.5 ppg;
* Valentin Kubrakov (2000–02, 03–04) – 121 games, 8.5 ppg;
* Igor Kudelin (2002–03, 06–07) – 35 games, 8.1 ppg;
* Sergei Chikalkin (2002–03, 05–09) – 187 games, 10.6 ppg;
* Andrei Fetisov (2002–03) – 20 games, 6.2 ppg;
* Viktor Keirou (2003–05, 07–08) – 83 games, 5.4 ppg;
* Vadim Panin (2006–07) – 35 games, 6.1 ppg;
* Dmitri Sokolov (2006–09) – 128 games, 6.8 ppg;
* Nikolay Padius (2007–08, 10–11) – 59 games, 5.3 ppg;
* Fedor Likholitov (2009–10) – 10 games, 2.5 ppg;
* Zakhar Pashutin (2010–12) – 102 games, 4.3 ppg;
* Aleksey Savrasenko (2011–12) – 56 games, 4.6 ppg;
* Nikita Shabalkin (2012–13) – 28 games, 6.3 ppg;
* Egor Koulechov (2020–21)

### Foreign
#### bold – former NBA players; Olympics, FIBA World and FIBA Europe champions and medalists

Note: Flags indicate national team eligibility at FIBA-sanctioned events. Players may hold other non-FIBA nationalities not displayed.
* Criteria
* To appear in this section a player must have either:
* Set a club record or won an individual award while at the club
* Played at least one official international match for their national team at any time
* Played at least one official NBA match at any time.
* Maurice Ndour
Milan Gurović (2004) and Hüseyin Beşok (2005) shortly were under contract with UNICS Kazan, but never played a single game for the team.
(*) former NBA champions

## Head coaches
### bold – Olympics, FIBA World and FIBA Europe champions and medalists

* Stanislav Eremin – 2000–06;
* Antanas Sireika – 2006–08;
* Aco Petrović – 2008–09;
* Valdemaras Chomičius – 2009–10;
* Evgeniy Pashutin – 2010–12;
* Aco Petrović – 2012–2013
* Stanislav Eremin – 2013;
* Andrea Trinchieri – 2013–2014
* Argiris Pedoulakis – 2014–2014
* Evgeniy Pashutin – 2014–2017
* Dimitrios Priftis – 2017–2021
* Velimir Perasović – 2021–