The derby of the round in Eurocup: Virtus Bologna – AS Monaco
The derby of the round in Eurocup: Virtus Bologna – AS Monaco
In the fifth round of Eurocup, we have a big match between two of the main favourites to win the title, Virtus Bologna and Monaco. Both teams had a very good start of the season and now there are sharing the top in Group A with 3 wins and 1 defeat. Let’s see who will win this encounter.
Virtus Bologna season is still an amazing one despite last round defeat against Promitheas in Eurocup, 78-69. That defeat came after an awful night for the Italians from the distance, finishing with only 4 shots made out of 27 attempts. What was their main strength in this start of the season, in this game was the reason for defeat. After that game, they travel to Brescia were they won 82-80 and kept their Seria A winning streak alive and now they have a 6-0 record. The top performer of the game was Milos Teodosic, with 25 points and 3 assists. Alongside him, Stefan Markovic (17 points and 3 assists) and Julian Gamble (12 points, 5 rebounds and 3 steals) also had nice contributions.
AS Monaco have two wins in a row now, first a big one against Ulm in Eurocup 82-65 and then against Strasbourg in French Ligue, 86-70. They have a good start in both competitions with a good record in Eurocup and a 4-1 record in the national league. Against Strasbourg, coach Sasa Obradovic used many players in order to give more minutes on the bench for the important players, because this game is very important to them, to see if they can match the power of the main favourites to win the Eurocup this season. 9 players had at least 13 minutes on the field, and from them, JJ O’Brien with 19 points and 3 assists and Dee Bost with 17 points and 4 assists were the main contributors.
I think both coaches had in mind this game in their respective games from national leagues. It’s a very good opportunity to compete against a very hard opponent and why not, against a possible contender for the Eurocup trophy. It will be a very hard game for both teams, but I expect Virtus to win the game, thanks to their fans’ support. They need to take care of their shots from the distance because that can easily win a game but also can make you lose one as we saw against Promitheas.
Photo: eurocupbasketball.com
Bogdan Vasile Tirc
