ACB: The revenge of Álex Mumbrú | ACB 2019

He qualifies for Bilbao Basket for the Copa del Rey a year and a half after retiring as a player descending to LEB Gold

• ACB
  

  Real Madrid takes a derby without color
  

• ACB
  

  This is the classification
  

For the risk profession consisting of being fond of Bilbao Basket a series of virtues that are not available to anyone is required. The main one is to be able to withstand with serene spirit and intact passion any providence that brings destiny, including threats of disappearance and appeals to the resurrection. Bilbao has long become an emotional tombola in which morrocotuda disappointments and immense joys are overcome, with almost no continuity solution. Thus, what a year and a half ago (May 2018) was desolation due to the descent to LEB Oro and the possible death of the club is today a joy for a historic classification for the Copa del Rey, the second in the history of a newly promoted team .

A name serves as a link between that past and this present. Álex Mumbrú He retired as a player, after a brilliant career, wiping away tears for the descent of the men in black. This Sunday, on the other hand, he celebrated with euphoria the victory at the Palau Blaugrana that sealed his passport for the appointment of Malaga, a particular revenge for the wound, still suppurating, of the world champion. The pass was, like everything that happens in Bilbao, as a brake. He forced the extension of the Basque team after losing by 14 points against Barcelona and he was victorious in the last breath thanks to two free throws missed by Delaney. Failed too Higgins the triple final and with that error he returned to Bilbao an elite from whom he had been expelled in the past for his own excesses.

With the lowest budget in the category – about one million euros –, Bilbao has sneaked into the top eight teams of the first round and, in passing, has sealed half the permanence, the real objective. Mumbrú keeps five players in the LEB Gold block –Lammers, Brown, Schreiner and the most residual Rigo and Cruz-, completed with economic bets of optimal result, such as the French forward Bouteille and the Czech pivot Balvin, two of the seven players with the best rating of what we have from ACB. A modest squad with which Bilbao has also achieved the feat of beating the four Euroleague teams in this first round.

The most difficult will still come to him in the Copa del Rey. In her, Madrid, Barça, Zaragoza and Tenerife will act as heads of series and will be paired by lottery with Bilbao, Valencia, Andorra – the three classifieds this Sunday – and the host Unicaja. Baskonia and Gran Canaria will be the main absent from the Malaga event, between February 13 and 16.