The first EuroLeague road game of the season is going to be played at the Fernando Buesa Arena in Vitoria, Friday 8 October at 20.30. It is played on a historically tough building: even during the past season in which Olimpia set its club record for road wins, in Vitoria, Olimpia came up very short, and the Basque team was one of only three teams that Olimpia last season failed to defeat. Besides, the local government has given Baskonia the green light to host up to 80% of the arena capacity. That means that up to 12,000 people could attend the game. It is a very significant game for Shavon Shields, who returns to a court where he was a big player for two years, where he played during the last season but behind closed doors. The arena means a lot to Sergio Rodriguez and Kyle Hines: in 2019 they won the EuroLeague championship with CSKA Moscow here. It also means a lot for Coach Ettore Messina: he won his second EuroLeague title by beating Vitoria in a best-of-five championship series. Olimpia won its opener against CSKA by playing a great defensive game and finding many different go-to guys, including Nicolò Melli, who was returning to the EuroLeague after two years and immediately scored 15 points with 24 index points; Devon Hall, who in his debut in the competition immediately scored in double figures; and Pippo Ricci, also a rookie, who played the entire last quarter, giving the team a lot of energy and defense.

COACH ETTORE MESSINA – “It’s going to be a complicated game, first of all because they’re getting back Wade Baldwin, their starting point guard who is an excellent player that we know very well. Baskonia is a team playing with a lot of athleticism and high tempo, a trademark of any Ivanovic coached team.  On top of it, they will have a lot of support from their crowd. For us, controlling the tempo, try to build some advantage in rebounding and hopefully shooting with good percentages will be the three key factors to try to prevail on a traditionally tough court.”

SHAVON SHIELDS – “The most important thing is that we compete and stay focused during the entire 40 minutes, because they are going to do it, and then fight for every rebound and defend. If we do this well, we will have the chance to try to win.”

THE REFEREES – Robert Lottermoser (Germany), Mario Majkic (Slovenia), Luka Kardum (Croatia).

BASKONIA – It lost its opener in Piraeus in a game played without Alec Peters and Wade Baldwin. Without the same two players, Baskonia also lost in the Liga in Manresa, but while Peters is supposed to be out for Friday, Baldwin will come back after the birth of his son. Baskonia, coached by Dusko Ivanovic, confirmed from last season team the Lithuanian guard Rokas Giedraitis, a north of 40 percent three-point shooter, the Lithuanian forward Tadas Sedekerskis, Alec Peters, plus the Latvian guard Alecs Kurucs and the Estonian forward Sander Raieste. Among the many newcomers there is Jayson Granger, who had already played two seasons in Vitoria before moving to Alba Berlin (in between he sat out a season due to injury). The other new names are Wade Baldwin, who arrived from Bayern Munich, Simone Fontecchio, from Alba Berlin, Landry Nnoko, a center who also played in Berlin and Belgrade in his EuroLeague career, the shooting guard Vanja Marinkovic, coming from Valencia, plus the rookies in the competition Matt Costello (from Tenerife), a power forward with a good outside shot, and Steven Enoch, who spent last year in Obradoiro.

HISTORY – Baskonia leads the all-time series 10-9. At home, Olimpia is 7-3 against Vitoria with a streak of seven consecutive wins broken during the last season, while on the road the record is 2-7. Olimpia have won twice in Vitoria, in the 2013/14 season in the Top 16, 83-65 with 17 points from Curtis Jerrells, and in 2017/18, 83-82 with 16 points each from Andrew Goudelock and Jordan Theodore. The latter scored the winning basket on a drive. Last year, Baskonia won both games, 86-69 in Vitoria.

THE BASKONIA CONNECTION – Shavon Shields played two years in Vitoria winning the Liga ACB in 2020. Shields played 59 EuroLeague games in Vitoria, scoring 569 points. He played 63 more games in the Spanish league with 711 points. Simone Fontecchio, now in Vitoria, played in Milan for three seasons but with only 17 appearances on the court in the EuroLeague. Baskonia’s new point guard, Wade Baldwin, played for Bayern last year and faced Olimpia in the playoff series which ended after five games

THE MESSINA-IVANOVIC CONNECTION – Ettore Messina and Dusko Ivanovic met in the first final in the history of the EuroLeague in 2001, the only season in which the title was not awarded through the Final Four but with a best-of-five championship series. Virtus Bologna, coached by Ettore Messina, won 3-2 against Vitoria, who was also coached by Ivanovic. In the history of the EuroLeague, Coach Messina has coached 370 games, second all-time, while Ivanovic has 324, fourth. In terms of wins, Messina has 264 against Ivanovic’s 182 (fifth).

GAME NOTES – Shavon Shields (who in the last 20 EuroLeague games has scored in double figures 19 times) has exceeded 500 points for Olimpia. His top in a single game is 34 points. In the “all-international competition” scorers’ ranking he is 17th all-time, one point behind Kevin Punter and nine points behind Piero Montecchi. Kaleb Tarczewski has scored 279 two-point field goals in his career. The all-time leader in the EuroLeague for Olimpia is Vlado Micov with 281. Sergio Rodriguez has scored 123 threes for Olimpia: the second all-time, Curtis Jerrells, has 125. Rodriguez has scored at least one three in 10 consecutive games. Malcolm Delaney is 26 points away from 1,500 for his career and four steals from 100. Nicolò Melli has now scored more than 400 points for Olimpia and is now three points behind Mindaugas Kuzminskas’ 20th place.

Share the article with your friends and support the team

Share the article with your friends and support the team
URL Copied to clipboard! Copia link