Ridiculous Bologna lost to “no names”
The great team of Virtus Bologna seems to have two totally distinct routes in Basketball Champions League and in Italian Legabasket. In the European competition they are unbeaten after 7 rounds, actually, the single team without a game lost, while in Italy they lost to mediocre teams like Cremona or Pesaro.
There are many explanations for this “bipolar disorder” of their games:
- Some of the foreign mercenaries are fighting just to be seen in the Basketball Champions League, hoping for a better contract next year and they don’t push so much their limits in the Italian championship
- The help from the referees is different in this 2 competitions: I saw Bologna helped by the referees in Basketball Champions League in some difficult moments and in the Italian Legabasket the referees seem to be hostile to Virtus, like yesterday when they give 4 fouls to Kevin Punter and 3 to Tony Taylor early in the game!
Anyway, to lose at home against Cremona with 18 points margin and yesterday to be beaten by Pesaro, a more than modest squad with decent players, but without big names in the roster, is embarrassing.
It is time for reflection for Virtus management because this is exactly the way to be out of the playoff again this year, like the last season! And last but not least, coach Sacripanti if you see that the opponents have a short quality rotation teach your players to penetrate more the defense in order to charge the other team with much more personal fouls, instead of just shooting lazy dumb 3 points shot with poor percentage!
Bologna had 6 from 22 from the arc against Pesaro, and they insisted also in the last minutes to force 3 pointers when they could try to score 2 points baskets, where they had a very good percentage. Why? Why Kevin Punter shot desperately many times when it was enough time to build an intelligent attack on the rim? He must learn to play in a team, yesterday he was just too selfish and the results were poor: he scored 2/9 from the field, made 4 fouls and had -2 efficiency rate!
Coach Sacripanti if you don’t beat mediocre teams like Pesaro, how do you want to win against Venezia (I don’t mention Milano), Brescia, Torino (when they will solve all their problems), Trento and other strong teams?
Graţian Cormoş, info@brainbasketball.net
