Olimpia hit the ground running and never looked back in its Italian Cup quarterfinals dominating win over Sassari 88-68. On Saturday, Olimpia will face red-hot Brescia in the semifinals. Milan made four threes over the first five minutes of the game, three of them were made by Troy Daniels who started in a small-ball lineup featuring three guards. Sassari used its three-point shooting to stay somehow in the game and closed the margin, repeatedly in double digit, at five at the half with a buzzer beating three by Filip Kruslin. But the third quarter proved to be the decisive one. Olimpia scored 23 points and held Sassari to nine, opening a 19-point insurmountable lead. The fourt quarter was good to rest most of the top players.

Malcolm Delaney was impressive scoring a game-high 24 points, plus five rebounds and four assists. He went 4-for-6 from three-point territory and had a personal rating of 30. He was all over the floor including the defensive end of it. Gerald Robinson, probably the hottest player in the league entering the game, was kept at nine points, and forced to accumulate six turnovers. Delaney had a lot of help across the roster. Kyle Hines was his usual self in terms of protecting the rim, Nicolò Melli and Pippo Ricci grabbed six rebounds each and David Alviti had another convincing outing. Troy Daniels finished with 4-for-6 from three. Devon Hall had an off night shooting the ball, but defensively he was all around. He guarded for many minutes Jason Burnell, the strong Sassari small forward who is used to abuse of smaller player down low. Not against him. Sergio Rodriguez had four assists and played with and without Delaney.

“It was a good game, we won, and we did it convincingly – Coach Ettore Messina said – I was scared of this game, because our team coming off isolation back in January was able to play a first very full of energy game against Virtus Bologna, while we struggled in the second one. Sassari in fact played a very good first half, shooting the ball well from outside. Our defense took over in the third quarter. Now, let’s get ready for Saturday’s game.”