Virtus Bologna deserves the title in Italy this season
There was a big debate about cancelling the league in Italy and with all the opposition of Virtus and Fortitudo Bologna, the Legabasket Serie A is finished without crowning a champion. Now the scandal continues and it seems that the government and the parliament will be involved too, in order to solve the situation.
No basketball federation in Europe has strong criteria in these circumstances because the Coronavirus outbreak surprised everybody. That’s why depending on different factors, each league solved the issue of the trophy in a different manner. There were actually 2 main solutions: to end the championship without crowning any team or to give the title to the best team in rankings, as it happened in Lithuania for instance, where Zalgiris is 2019-2020 champion.
Of course, in Italy, the league is more balanced than in Lithuania, where the Euroleague powerhouse led by Sarunas Jasikevicius is dominating this decade. But there are some arguments for Virtus Bologna to be crowned as Italian champions this season:
- they are occupying the 1st place in Italy with an unbelievable record, having only 2 losses in 20 games played s far. The next team, Dinamo Sassari was defeated 5 times and Germani Brescia and Armani Milan – 7 times.
- Virtus Bologna smashed Armani Milano and the vast majority of the Italian teams, being the most powerful squad of the season without a doubt
- they invested a lot of money this season, bringing in some Euroleague, Eurocup and BasketballCL champions like Milos Teodosic, Stefan Markovic, Vince Hunter helped by many other impressive players, including national team level Italians, like Fillipo Baldi Rossi and Giampaolo Ricci.
This was “their” season and I don’t see how other teams from Legabasket could beat them in a playoff series with the homecourt advantage for Virtus Bologna. Not even the only major candidates Dinamo Sassari and Armani Milano. While in other leagues the ranking was more balanced, in Italy, Virtus Bologna had by far the first chance to win the title and if a true decision has to be made they have to be crowned as champions of Legabasket Serie A.
Photo: Eurocup
Gratian Cormos
