RUS – Hansen named in Russia’s preliminary squad

MOSCOW (Olympics) - Russia coach David Blatt has named Dynamo Moscow’s Travis Hansen in a 21-strong preliminary squad ahead of this summer’s Olympics.

Hansen will compete with fellow American JR Holden of CSKA Moscow for a place in the group that will travel to the Beijing Games since teams are only allowed one naturalized player.

Holden, the established point guard, just won a second Euroleague crown in three years with CSKA. He hit the game-winning shot last year in the gold medal game for Russia.

Sasha Kaun, a 22-year-old shot-blocking center who won an NCAA title with the Kansas Jayhawks in April, has made the list.

CSKA Moscow center Alexey Savrasenko of CSKA Moscow missed the second half of this season with a shoulder injury but is included along with Andrei Kirilenko and most of the other EuroBasket 2007 winners. Missing is Nikolai Padius, a back-up point guard on last year’s team.

The final squad will not be announced until after an international tournament in Moscow involving the Russians, Ukraine, Latvia and Serbia.

Russia preliminary squad: A Kirilenko, V Khryapa, A Vorontsevich, N Morgunov, N Shabalkin, S Monya, F Dmitriev; A Savrasenko, A Kaun, D Sokolov, JR Holden, Z Pashutin, A Shved, S Bykov, P Samoylenko, T Hansen, D Khvostov, A Ponkrashov, V Fridzon, V Keiru, A Zozulin.

FIBA