Olimpia is playing in Athens against Panathinaikos in the Top 16 first round. Samardo Samuels is still out while recovering from the right hand surgery while David Moss after a 4-game absense is trying to return. Here what Coach Luca Banchi had to say : “We face one of the top teams of the competition. Panathinaikos last year was very close to make it to the Final Four. We are aware of our role of being one of the outsiders but at the same time we’re confident we can compete with everybody and that’s what we really desire to do, starting with the Athens game. Panathinaikos probably will give us the measure of our potential in the group. They have a great roster with a symbol like Batiste but their identity is represented by Diamantidis. They also have more players capable to step up any given night especially the big men: Lasme and Gist are very good at establishing the physicality of their game both defensively and offensively”.

This is  what Daniel Hackett said about the game: “The first step if always very important but we have to play one game at a time, one quarter at a time, one possession at a time and we’ll be fine because our perimeter players are very good and our big men are strong too”.