Today Olimpia left the confines of its practice facility to embark on a seven-day road trip that will finish next Friday when the team will be back in Milan to prepare for the imminent clash with Virtus Bologna in the Italian league. The first stop is Sassari for a Sunday matinee in Sardinia against a team often linked to Olimpia over the last decade or so. The teams faced each other six times in the playoffs including the last two semifinal series. However, both teams have been struggling over the first two months of the season. While Olimpia has had a lot of ups and downs, just think about the last week, when a big win in Belgrade was followed by a couple of home losses, Sassari started its preseason losing to an injury his most significant player, the Lithuanian sharpshooter Eimantas Bendzius. After five games, Ousmane Diop, the starting center, followed him on the injured list. Dinamo, coach by former Olimpia head man, Piero Bucchi, is coming off a home win against Scafati and will try to get a win to stay close to the Final Eight area while keeping at distance the bottom of the standings. Olimpia is not healthy too. Billy Baron obviously is still in Milan trying to get back on the court, hopefully in a few weeks, and Nikola Mirotic stayed behind too, to undergo further tests to his left Achilles. The game is clearly a tough one and a very significant one, too. “We have been struggling, both teams, over the first part of the season. So, mental toughness and concentration will go a long way to determine the outcome of the game,” Coach Mario Fioretti pointed out after the last practice.