Baskonia visits the unpredictable and irregular Armani Milan
MADRID, 27 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Baskonia will try to close the year 2023 with a new joy in the Regular Phase of the 2023-2024 Euroleague in its visit this Thursday (8:30 p.m.) to the Italian EA7 Armani Milan, a rival as irregular as it is unpredictable and that is not being again capable of rubbing shoulders with the best, but historically he has not been very good on his field.
The Baskonista team wants to finish among the six best at the end of this first round in the highest continental competition where it has been able to right its bad start, the complete opposite of Ettore Messina's team, destined, in theory, to be a direct rival for the positions in the upper area.
The Vitorian team has a positive balance of 9-7, but that, however, is not worth much to have some comfort due to the tremendous equality that exists in this first section and which means that there are six other teams in the same situation. In this multiple tie, Baskonia is ninth and needs to win at the Mediolanum Forum to aspire to get into the top six places that give direct access to the 'Playoff'.
Now, after having played three games in a row at home at the Fernando Buesa Arena, Dusko Ivanovic's men have the opposite situation, facing a third and final consecutive exit. At the moment, the Baskonistas are better away (5-2) than in their fortress of Zurbano (4-5) after beating Anadolu Efes in Istanbul (80-87) to compensate for the defeat in Belgrade against Maccabi (90- 81).
The Montenegrin coach is little by little recovering all his troops to make his team work perfectly and will finally be able to count on his entire squad after the recovery of Matt Costello, a new piece for a team that continues to rely on Markus Howard, once again lethal in the Sinan Erdem (28 points), Codi Miller-McIntyre, more established every day and who touched the 'triple-double' (14 points, 10 rebounds and 9 assists) in Istanbul, and Chima Moneke, the fifth best rated in this Regular Phase.
With these goals, Baskonia will try to end their kind of 'curse' when they face Armani Milan at home, since of the 12 visits in the top European competition, they have only been victorious in three, including the first two. Of the remaining ten, only the victory three years ago by 79-84 and with Ivanovic on his bench, while last season they lost by 89-83.
The situation has not changed much since then in the Italian team, which is once again closer to the bottom of the classification than to the 'playoff' with a discreet balance of 6-10 and without obtaining the desired result upon the arrival of a luxury reinforcement like Nikola Mirotic, although he has been able to win at the Palau or with great authority against Estrella Roja, in Belgrade, and Efes.
The Montenegrin power forward cannot help now either because he is injured, which reduces his team's potential since he was their best scorer (17.6), rebounder (6.2) and rating (19.6). Neither will Maodo Lo, another of this year's important signings, nor Giampaolo Ricci, in addition to the newcomer Shabazz Nappier, who cannot play in the Euroleague until January, nor does it seem that with a Kevin Pangos, with one foot outside the team. Two former Baskonia players such as Shavon Shields and Johannes Voigtman and Nicló Melli will be the players to watch for the visitors.
DATASHEET.
–EQUIPMENT.
EA7 ARMANI MILAN: Flaccadori, Shields, Hall, Melli and Voigtmann –possible starting quintet– Poythress, Tonut, Hines, Baron, Bortolani, Kamagate and Caruso.
BASCONY: McIntyre, Marinkovic, Ten, Sedekerskis and Kotsar — possible starting quintet — Howard, Costello, Moneke, Diop, Rogkavopoulos, Chiozza and Raieste.
–REFEREES: Difallah, Vylius and Radojkovic.
–PABELLÓN: Milan Forum.
–TIME: 8:30 p.m./Movistar Deportes 2.