It’s a derby, it’s a game full of tradition and it comes for Olimpia on the eve of the arguably most demanding week of the season. After this game, in fact, the team will have to go on the road for three games in a row, Munich, Kaunas and finally to Sassari. During a seven-day stint, Olimpia will play four games, a terrible schedule that precedes the Final Eight of the Italian Cup and the EuroLeague break. Olimpia has won five of the last six in the Italian league but before this promising streak it had lost in Varese of all places. However, the morale is high following the great performance against Panathinaikos with six players unavailable: “We fully intend to repeat the kind of defensive game we had last Thursday,” assistant coach Mario Fioretti proclaimed. The injury situation will improve against Varese because Diego Flaccadori (flu-like symptoms) and Pippo Ricci (thigh) should be recovered. Ousmane Diop also should be able to help. It remains a game to be approached with patience, not only because Varese has already taken away a precious win from Olimpia and is looking for every win to be able to avoid the relegation battle. “It is crucial to make them work defensively in order to build good shots and at the same time keep them from playing in open court,”, Fioretti added. It will also be Coach Ettore Messina’s 200th appearance on the Olimpia bench in the Italian league where he has a 145-54 (72.9 percent) record which is essentially identical to what he boasts in the playoffs (35-13, 72.9 percent again). During half-time, Olimpia will celebrate the induction into its Hall of Fame of Toni Cappellari, the club’s general manager in the 1980s.
Tip off time on Sunday, February 2, 2025, is scheduled at 17:30
VARESE OUTLOOK – Varese has lost the last two matches games but had won the previous three. During the first half of the season, they beat Olimpia – without Nikola Mirotic – starting a streak of four wins over a five-game span. The point guards are Keifer Sykes (8.8 points and 4.3 assists on average) and Matteo Librizzi (11.2 points and 3.6 assists per game) who is confirming himself as an elite shooter as shown by his 44.1 percent from three on 4.0 attempts. The guards are Jaylen Hands (17.8 points and 5.4 assists per game) and Desonta Bradford (10.0 points, 41.7 percent from three). The forwards are Justin Gray (7.1 points and 3.3 rebounds on average), Davide Alviti (13.0 points, 4.8 rebounds and 39.1% three-point shooting) and Jaron Johnson (12.7 points and 4.5 rebounds on average). Coach Mandole often uses Alviti and Johnson together at the two forward positions next to a center who can be the experienced Alex Tyus (5.1 points per game, but 6.5 rebounds of which 2.4 are offensive) or the big-time leaper Kaoddirichi Ehiogu (8.0 points on 82.4 percent from two, 4.5 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game). However, Varese has seven foreigner players so one of them will have to stay out.
THE VARESE CONNECTION – Guglielmo Caruso played 49 Italian league games in Varese in two years with 349 points scored. Nico Mannion played 21 games with Varese, spread over two seasons with 445 points scored and 136 assists distributed. Davide Alviti played 66 games with Olimpia between 2021 and 2023, winning two championships and one Italian Cup, scoring 176 points in the Italian league. Keifer Sykes played six games for Olimpia in the Italian league, scoring 83 points and 22 assists during the 2019/20 season.
