This is what Coach Jasmin Repesa aaid after Olimpia’s win 99-97 over Maccabi. “It was a very interesting game and in the end we tried to make it even more interesting. If you learn by this mistake that’s good because we won anyway. Winning was important tonight. Everybody did a lot and the 29 assists meant a lot to us. And so all the players that scored in double figure. At the same time we need to improve defensively especially on pick and roll situations. We need to do better because we know how to do better. They made some crazy shots, they have talent, Andrew Goudelock was fantastic but we need to improve”.

On Hickman: “He played with a lot of personality and he gave us a sense of security, offensively he gave direction, he defended well also”.
On the starting five: “I chose to start with Macvan and Pascolo because I feel our defense can be more aggressive early in the game when we are not in the penalty. Especially now that Raduljica is not healthy enough. We also missed Sanders a lot because he was perfect to match up with their power forwards who are really small forwards. We still found a way to cover the position well and I was very worried about that before the game”.

On Pascolo: “The will to improve is more important thananything else and this explains how he can consistently beat the odds and raise his level of play. He can move without the ball and his body confuses everyone, opponents and teammates. He’s like an octopus. I love him”