Olimpia continues its attempt to climb up the standings by hosting Vanoli Cremona at the Allianz Cloud in its last game of 2025. In the Italian league, Milan is riding a three-game winning streak, over Trento, Bologna, and Cantù, and has just clinched a berth for the Italian Cup Final Eight The team took two days off during the Christmas holidays and then returned to practice on December 26. The roster situation is the same as it was in Cantù, with Nico Mannion available, wearing a mask to protect his broken nose, while Diego Flaccadori, Stefano Tonut, and Ousmane Diop among the Italians are still out, as are Leandro Bolmaro and Nate Sestina among the foreigners. Cremona started the season by winning three of its first four games, then four of its first six, but has won only one of its last six, dropping out of the top half of the standings. It boasts a roster of young, high-performing Italians, including Davide Casarin, Giovanni Veronesi, and Sasha Grant, and uses a physically impressive 4 (Ousmane Ndiaye) who can open the floor with his perimeter shot. Much of its scoring potential is on the perimeter. The three guards in the rotation (Aljami Durham, Payton Willis, and Casarin) in fact produce over 40 points per game for a team that attempts 32 three-pointers per game and is also a remarkable offensive rebounding team. Therefore, Olimpia will have to play a cautious game to limit the risks.
Tip-off time on Monday 29, 2025, will be 20:00.
COACH EMILIO KOVACIC – “Cremona is a team that has size, athleticism and physicality which they use well, especially on defense. They have several players that can attack the rim and are also dangerous creating on the perimeter. They are a well balanced team that has beaten some very good teams this season. They did lose a few games in a row lately but that is not an indication of their overall quality. We can’t come into this game relaxed because they have the tools to cause problems. We will be on high alert tomorrow.”
CREMONA OUTLOOK – Point guard Aljami Durham has a distinguished college background, playing for prestigious programs such as Indiana and Providence. His professional career has developed entirely in Europe, in Greece at Lavrio, in Great Britain, and last year at Girona. He is playing with great efficiency, averaging 15.3 points per game, shooting 48.0 percent from three on 4.2 attempts, and dishing out 3.0 assists. Veteran Payton Willis is the other guard: a talented offensive player who had a stellar season at Pistoia in 2023-24, then moved to Tenerife, only to return to Italy to play for Cremona. He currently averages 14.1 points, 4.3 assists, and 3.2 rebounds per game. He shoots 36.3 percent from three on 6.7 attempts. The third guard is Davide Casarin, averaging 11.5 points and 4.9 assists per game, along with 4.8 rebounds, of which a surprising 2.2 per game are offensive. The small forwards are Giovanni Veronesi, in his second season in the Italian top league after his debut in Sassari, who averages 9.8 points per game on 55.3 percent shooting on twos, but is above all a long-range shooter (6.3 attempts per game), and Tajion Jones (averaging 8.5 points and 3.1 rebounds), in his second year in Cremona after making his European debut in Leiden, Netherlands. Power forward Ousmane Ndiaye, a 6-foot-10 player who spent three years at Baskonia, then moved to Palencia and Granada, came to Cremona this season. He declared for the NBA draft but wasn’t selected: he’s averaging 11.2 points per game and 7.8 rebounds, but he’s also an excellent three-point shooter (34.3 percent on 5.6 attempts). Center Ike Anigbobu averages 4.5 points and 5.2 rebounds per game, and is particularly strong offensive rebounder. The other two big men are Sasha Grant, who also made his national team debut and is a very physical player with great defensive aptitude (4.9 points and 2.5 rebounds per game), and Christian Burns (4.7 points and 2.3 rebounds per game), an experienced, multidimensional player with a lot of energy.
THE CREMONA CONNECTION – Pippo Ricci made his top league debut at Cremona, where he helped the club win an Italia Cup, playing 70 games in two years. Peppe Poeta played for Cremona for the last two years of his career, making 48 appearances. Christian Burns played for Milan in the 2018/19 and 2019/20 seasons, making 58 Italian league appearances.
