Coach Peppe Poeta is going after his former team, Brescia, the first he coached as the head man, including the majority of the roster (the only exception being CJ Massinburg), but this time the Italian Cup final is at stake. This year, Olimpia beat Brescia in the Supercup final at the Forum, then lost in a close game to Brescia in the regular season and suffered a Brescia’s comeback in Palalido. This game is on neutral ground. Olimpia beat Brescia in the 2022 semifinal in Pesaro and last year in Turin, where Olimpia lost the 2023 quarterfinal clash. Brescia will be without point guard Nikola Ivanovic (shoulder); Olimpia lost Ousmane Diop (right thigh flexor strain: he will re-evaluated in two weeks) in the quarterfinal after being crucial with his presence in the middle in Josh Nebo’s support. The game’s challenges are clear: Brescia is the team that attempts the most free throws and three-pointers in the entire league, but it’s also the most accurate in both (84.3 percent from the line; 38.4 percent from beyond the arc), thanks to a top-notch inside guys like Jason Burnell and Miro Bilan. Therefore, defensively, Olimpia will have to cover large spaces and control experienced, quality players who are great at drawing fouls and commit few of them. Brescia leads the league in fouls drawn and leads also for fewest fouls committed (the difference is 4.2 fouls per game). Della Valle has been 22 of 24 from the line in his last two games against Olimpia. These are the stats to work with. The team practiced in Moncalieri this afternoon; tomorrow morning, Coach Poeta and his staff will decide whether or not to retain the six foreign players that were used in the quarterfinals.
ITALIAN CUP NOTES – EA7 Emporio Armani Milano-Germani Brescia will take place in Turin’s Inalpi Arena on February 21st, at 18:00. Bologna-Tortona is the other semifinals that will elect the other finalist in the championship game to be played on Sunday, 22nd again at 18:00.
THE REFEREES – Saverio Lanzarini, Manuel Attard, Valerio Grigioni.
COACH PEPPE POETA – “We will need to play a high energy game and use our physicality in order to find a way to stop or at least slow down a well-oiled machine, the most experienced group of players you can find in Italy, a group who has been playing together for one year and half.”
BRESCIA OUTLOOK – Brescia is a familiar opponent, the most consistent team in the league. Indeed, they’ve reaped the benefits of their consistency, staying at the top of the league, despite losing to Varese in the last round, paying the price for the absence of Nikola Ivanovic (13.4 points and 4.3 assists per game). However, the answer was a resounding win over Udine in the quarterfinals. Without Ivanovic, the point guard is the experienced CJ Massinburg (8.9 points per game), who has the physicality of a big guard, can play two positions, and turn it on offensively in a monent. Currently, he averages 22.5 minutes per game, but since Ivanovic’s absence, that figure has risen to 27.5. Amedeo Della Valle, who has always started, is Coach Cotelli’s most used player, averaging 31.2 minutes per game. He avregaes 17.5 points and 4.8 assists per game, takes 7.1 three-pointers and converts them at 40.7 percent, but he also has a 91.9 percent free throw rate while drawing 4.0 fouls per game. In his last five outings, he has averaged 22.5 points per game. In his last game against Olimpia, he scored 31 points, a season high, but more importantly, he shot 15 free throws while drawing eight fouls. Demetre Rivers (9.0 points per game), an athletic small forward who plays 24.4 minutes as a starter, is a three-point specialist, especially from the corners: he shoots 38.7 percent on 4.8 attempts per game, almost doubling the number of two-point shots he attempts. He, too, is very accurate from the free throw line, 18 out of 20 so far. Power forward Maurice Ndour is a versatile player who moves to the nominal center position when Bilan is benched. He averages 10.7 points per game on 53.8 percent two-point shooting. His favorite shot is from mid-range, around the free throw line area. He is also the team’s third-best rebounder with 5.2 boards per game. Miro Bilan is the team’s key player: his presence determines Brescia’s play, as they go inside-out. The Croatian center plays 29.1 minutes on average, scoring 14.5 points per game and shooting 58.8 percent from two on 9.6 attempts. He draws 4.6 fouls per game and shoots 4.1 free throws, although he isn’t the most accurate shooter (65.6 percent). He is also the league’s leading rebounder, averaging 9.0 per game, 3.5 of which are offensive rebounds. Containing Bilan is the problem that every team faces: individually, it is a very difficult task, but doubl-teaming him (2.3 assists on average) means exposing to Brescia three-point shooting. The bench, with Massinburg in the starting line-up, relies on David Cournooh (4.2 points per game) among the guards; Joseph Mobio (3.2 points, 44.8 percent three-point shooting) among the big men, but above all on Jason Burnell. With 26.8 minutes on the court, he is fourth on the team in playing time. He plays both small forward and power forward positions, is a low-post player comparable to Bilan (52.2 percent two-point shooting on 7.1 attempts), is also good at drawing fouls (4.0 per game), and he can’t miss from the free throw line (94.1 percent). Finally, he is an underrated rebounder, averaging 6.8 rebounds per game, 1.9 of which are offensive rebounds.
THE BRESCIA CONNECTION – Olimpia coach Peppe Poeta coached Brescia last year, where they reached the the Italian league championship series, losing to Virtus Bologna. Amedeo Della Valle played 48 league games over two seasons with Olimpia Milano between 2018 and 2020. He won the 2018 Super Cup with Olimpia.
ITALIAN CUP NOTES– Olimpia Milano has won the Italian Cup eight times in its history, like Virtus Bologna and Treviso, the other two teams that lead the list. It has played in 13 championship games (8-5), while its run has been stopped in the semifinals nine times. The first final dates back to the 1969/70 season, in Rome, where Olimpia was defeated 74-66 by Ignis Varese, who that season also secured the league title and the Champions Cup. The first win came in 1972, at the Pala Ruffini in Torino, against the same opponent but with a different outcome. Olimpia won 81-77. That season it also won the Cup Winners’ Cup and the league, where it defeated Varese in one game play-off in Rome. Olimpia then won in 1986 and 1987 on neutral court in Bologna, each time against Vuelle Pesaro. In 1996 Olimpia won the Final Four in Assago, defeating Verona in the final. To get the fifth victory we would have to wait until 2016, again at the Forum, with an 82-76 triumpg against Avellino. Olimpia repeated the feat the following season in Rimini, beating Sassari 84-74 in the final. Another double happened in 2021 and 2022, first in Milan and then in Pesaro, against Pesaro (87-59) and Tortona (78-61) respectively. Overall, Olimpia is 107-47 in Italian Cup games, equal to a 69.5 percent win rate. Rolando Blackman (1996), Rakim Sanders (2016), Ricky Hickman (2017), Gigi Datome (2021), and Malcolm Delaney (2022) are the Olimpia players who have been Italian Cup MVPs.
