Olimpia returns to play in front of its home crowd for five consecutive games, two in the Italian league and three in the EuroLeague, although after December 14th it will have to move to the Allianz Cloud, the arena formerly known as Palalido. In a challenging moment due to the abnormal number of absences, so much so that tomorrow three players from the Under-19 team (Samuele Miccoli, Mattia Ceccato, and Luca Bandirali) will be on the roster, being able to count on the support of the fans is the most comforting aspect. The game against Trento is a complicated one, especially with limited rest and the return from a long road game, and it is important for the standings implications. Amid all this—it’s Quinn Ellis’s first game against Trento; Shavon Shields is another former Trento player (Diego Flaccadori is out); Massimo Cancellieri returns to coach in Milan for the first time since leaving in 2019 after a six-year stint as an assistant – there’s also a match-up that has seen 51 games in a ten-year span, some of them very important, so it is important and there’s also Coach Peppe Poeta’s first game as Olimpia’s head coach in the Italian league.
Tip-off time in Unipol Forum tomorrow is 18:00
INJURY REPORT – Nate Sestina (right arm), Diego Flaccadori (surgical procedure), Nico Mannion (fractured nasal septum), Ousmane Diop (right knee), Stefano Tonut (flu), Marko Guduric (scheduled sideline), and Lorenzo Brown (right shoulder, injury reported after the Vitoria game) are all out. Devin Booker and Quinn Ellis are available.
COACH EMILIO KOVACIC – “Trento is a team full of athleticism and individual talent, well-covered at all positions, that loves to run and shoot in the opening seconds of any possession, before the opposing defense can even get set. At full strength, they just had a resounding Eurocup win in Ulm, so they’re in good shape. Playing a high-level game, regardless of our energy levels after the Vitoria game, will be essential to securing the victory.”
TRENTO OUTLOOK – Compared to the team that won the Italian Cup and faced Olimpia in the quarterfinals, Trento retained only captain and icon Toto Forray, centers Selom Mawugbe and Jordan Bayehe, and youngsters Patrick Hassan and Cheickh Niang. The guards are DeVantè Jones and DJ Steward. Jones (13.6 points and 4.5 assists per game on average) graduated from Michigan University after three years at Coastal Carolina and then landed in Europe, first in France and then in Ljubljana. Steward spent a year at Duke before trying to make a name for himself in the minor leagues. This is his first season in Europe: he’s playing at a very high level, averaging 16.2 points and 4.1 assists per game, while shooting 58.0 percent on twos. The third guard, but he can also play at the small forward spot, is Khalif Battle (13.8 points per game on 37.5 percent three-point shooting), who missed five games due to an injury but has twice scored 20+ points since returning. He’s a perimeter player who played at Butler, at Temple for three years, Arkansas, and last season was at Gonzaga in his sixth college season. The other guards are the iconic Toto Forray (4.1 points per game), who is shooting 43.8 percent from three-point range, and Patrick Hassan (born in 2007), who is averaging 5.4 points per game and was part of the Italian national team that finished runner-up at the Under-17 World Championship two years ago. At small forward, another option is Andrej Jakimovski, a Macedonian with an Italian registration, who played college ball at Washington State and Colorado, before returning to Italy for this season. He is averaging 9.0 points per game. Power forward Peyton Aldridge, a Davidson alum, spent one year in Cremona and then the rest of his career in Turkey before returning to Italy to play for Trento. He is averaging 8.6 points and 4.3 rebounds per game, but his main strength is his three-point shooting: he is shooting 58.1 percent on 3.4 attempts per game. The back-up is Lithuanian Matas Jogela, averaging 8.3 points and 3.7 rebounds per game, in his first season in Italy. The centers are Jordan Bayehe (7.6 points and 4.1 rebounds per game), a Cameroonian international who also grew up in Italy; and Selom Mawugbe, averaging 5.9 points and 5.0 rebounds, a vertical rim runner and a great shot blocker. The rotation also includes the very young Cheickh Niang (5.0 points per game), who can play both forward positions.
THE TRENTO CONNECTION – Shavon Shields played 59 games over two seasons in Trento, scoring 769 points. Under his lead, Trento reached the Italian league final twice, in 2018 against Olimpia. Diego Flaccadori played 235 Serie A games in Trento, in two different stints. Along with Shields, he reached two championship series (though he did not play in 2018 against Milan). With Trento, he scored 2,133 points in the Italian league. Quinn Ellis played 60 games, scoring 496 points over two years in the Italian league in Trento. Last year, he was the MVP of the Italian Cup Final Eight. Finally, Trento coach Massimo Cancellieri spent six years at Olimpia as an assistant coach to Luca Banchi, Jasmin Repesa, and Simone Pianigiani, winning three championships, two Italian Cups, and three Supercups.
