A new season is officially starting in a very familiar place, in Bologna where the last road game was played last season. However, the arena is different. This Supercup tournament will be played in Casalecchio di Reno, a few kilometers from the regular Virtus arena, the same building where the last Olimpia’s Supercup trophy was won, in 2020. The semifinal game will be played against Reyer Venezia, a regular among the best teams over the last few years. It is a very physical and athletic team, equipped to be very competitive in the Eurocup, with a lot of depth among the big men (Simms, Wiltjer, Kabengele, Tessitori and Lever) and very experienced among the guards, a group led by Tyler Ennis, who played in the NBA and had a short stint in Fenerbahce that was interrupted by an injury. Ennis was instrumental in Napoli’s Italian Cup triumph last season. The same Napoli team will face Virtus Bologna in the second semifinal.
Olimpia has had less than one month of work including six games between exhibitions and scrimmages of increasing level of difficulty. Fortunately, the team improved game by game and should be ready to go. “We worked with a lot of enthusiasm and the right spirit – Coach Ettore Messina said – We are aware this is the beginning of the journey, and the outcome of the tournament won’t be indicative of what will happen during the season, for the good or the bad.”
Olimpia will have to play with a “Italian league kind of roster”, with six foreigners and six Italians, including new named Captain (along Shavon Shields), Pippo Ricci, and Stefano Tonut, a former franchise players for Reyer. “I’m positive we will have a good tournament – Tonut said – For the first time in years we spent the preseason with a full roster and we built our game, we should be running more, eliminate extra possessions and defend even more, but the necomers are giving us a lor.” Tip-off time will be at 18:00 on Saturday, same time of the championship game if Olimpia will be playing in it.
Venezia is coached by the experienced Neven Spahija. The only player who is new to the Italian league is the guard Xavier Mumford, who averaged 14.5 points per game in the Eurocup last season when he was playing for Hapoel Tel Aviv. The newcomers are sharpshooter Davide Moretti from Varese; the athletic Carl Wheatle from Pistoia; the experienced Juan Fernandez who used to play in Trieste; the stretch big Alessandro Lever; and the mentioned Tyler Ennis. The team is hard to play against because the physicality of the bigs, especially Mfiondu Kabengele and Aamir Simms. Kyle Wiltjer is a power forward who can really shoot and had some EuroLeague experience in his background.
