Awaiting Olimpia on Sunday at the Unipol Forum is a team that has was never beaten in direct clashes this season, clearly in the first in Trento and less emphatically in the Italian Cup championship game. Like the one played last Saturday in Brescia, this is a game with great weight on the standings: by winning Olimpia – although it cannot think of recovering the 34 margin of the first game – would complete the comeback and tie Trento with seven games left in the regular season and at the same time would reach at least one other of the four teams that lead the standings (Trapani-Brescia is on the schedule). But just as happened in Brescia, Olimpia cannot ignore that there is a EuroLeague double round coming up, with two crucial games for the playoff/play-in zone and will be decisive for the team’s future in the European competition. So they will try to mediate things and in order to deafet Trento, regardless, Olimpia will need a game with fierce attention to detail exactly like it did in Brescia one week ago.

Tip-off time will be on Sunday, 23 March, 2025, at 18:15

TRENTO OUTLOOK – Generally, Coach Paolo Galbiati is very consistent in defining the Trento rotation that includes Ellis and Cale as guards; Pecchia and Lamb as wings and Maguwbe as center, while the support from the bench comes from Ford, Niang, Zukauskas, Bayehe, in addition to the apparently undestructible Forray. Quinn Ellis, a British international but Italian by status, MVP of the Final Eight, is producing 9.8 points, 4.8 assists and 3.9 rebounds per game shooting 34.0 percent from three. Myles Cale is a guard (averaging 12.2 points and 3.7 rebounds) who is deadly as a shooter from three-point range as demonstrated by the surreal 47.8 percent he boasts this season. Jordan Ford is one of the most effective sixth men in the league: despite never been in the starting five, he is the team’s leading scorer with 16.6 points per game, 59.0 percent shooting from two and 37.9 percent from three on 5.3 attempts per night. Toto Forray completes the rotation of the guards with a contribution that is more quality than quantity (5.2 points per game, 45.5 percent three-point shooting). Andrea Pecchia as a small forward is a defensive specialist but also an excellent rebounder compared to his size and minutes: this season he has 6.0 points and 5.4 rebounds on average, 2.1 of which area grabbed on offense thanks to his timing and uncanny opportunism. Saliou Niang is used to play multiple positions both on offense and defense: he is averaging 7.3 points per game in less than 20 minutes (and counting!) on the court with the addition of 5.0 rebounds per game. The power forward is Anthony Lamb, who has played 88 NBA games in his career, 62 of which in Golden State, with 6.7 points per game during the 2022/23 season. He averages 15.6 points per game and adds 4.7 rebounds, while attempting over seven times per game from the arc. Lithuanian Eigirdas Zukauskas is a power forward who can also play center with a sharp three-point shot, so much so that he takes 4.8 three-point shots and only 1.8 two-point shots per game. In total, he averages 8.3 points with 40.7 percent from the arc. The starting center Selom Maguwbe is huge athlete who is averaging 6.3 points per game on 70.3 two-point shooting. On top of it, he is grabbing 6.5 rebounds per night and block 1.7 shots, the best in the league. He is a rim runner who plays above the rim. Jordan Bayehe, just back from injury, is an athletic center with 5.1 points and 4.6 rebounds on average.

THE TRENTO CONNECTION – Andrea Pecchia, 27, is a product of the Olimpia youth teams, where he was coached by Paolo Galbiati himself, who is now lcoaching Trento for the second consecutive season. Pecchia made his Serie A debut during the 2014/15 season and the following year he played in Serie A for the first time, wearing the Olimpia jersey. Galbiati won the Under 17 title during the 2012/13 season in Milan. The Trento roster also includes Denis Badalau, another product of the Olimpia youth team with whom he won the 2024 Under 19 championship. Shavon Shields played 59 games over two seasons in Trento, scoring 769 points. With him, Trento played in the championship series twice, in 2018 against Olimpia. Diego Flaccadori played 235 Serie A games in Trento, over two different experiences. Along with Shields he reached two championship series (but he did not play in the 2018 one against Milan). With Trento, he scored 2133 points in the Italian league.