Olimpia will end its highly demanding week in Casale Monferrato where Tortona is playing its home games. The EuroLeague week was a reasonably good one. Olimpia faced the two finalists from last season and split the outcome, 1-1. For about 59 minutes the team was able to play at a very high level, but the second half in Madrid (and the unlucky last minute of the first) cost the loss against Real. Olimpia came back home during the night between Thursday and Friday, will reach Casale on game day. Priority is to find the energy necessary, as always during this type of schedule, to win a tough road game. Tortona is a very experienced team. Under Coach Marco Ramondino reached the semifinals in both last two seasons and an Italian Cup championship game against Olimpia in 2022. This season, it is competing in the Fiba BCL and just won its home debut against Murcia, showing the ability to adapt, since the win was conquered with a small line-up featuring Andrea Zerini or Mike Daum as nominal centers and Kyle Weems at the power forward position. The team signed a lot of veterans during the summer, including point-guard Chris Dowe from Sassari, the Belgian international, Retin Obasohan, and the former Virtus Bologna star, Kyle Weems. Weems scored the crucial shot to win the game in Varese for his team. “Dowe and Weems are their leaders, they are charismatic,” Coach Fioretti remarked.

Tortona across the competitions, is entering this game on a three-game winning streak. Among the newcomers there is Tommaso Baldasso, too. The scoring point-guard helped Olimpia win the last two championships, with his fearless shooting stroke off the bench. Now, he is making Tortona deeper along Leonardo Candi, Andrea Zerini, of course the Italian international, Luca Severini and Leon Radosevic, a center who has seen it all even with Olimpia as a youngster. “They are very good at creating early one on one situations with Chris Dowe and Retin Obasohan – Coach Mario Fioretti says – and very organized in their half court offense. We need to be mentally tough to prevail on the road against this type of team. They are also deep with the guards and their big men are very versatile, especially Mike Daum.”

Olimpia will still be without injured Maodo Lo and Billy Baron, while Nikola Mirotic is recovering from the hit he received in Madrid to the face and his availability will be a game-time decision.

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