Olimpia —after a spectacular double-round EuroLeague campaign, with wins in Athens and then at home against Efes Istanbul — takes its winning streak in the Italian league to Naples, on a building where it has historically struggled to thrive, facing a healthy, highly motivated team—a win would clinch a berth to the Italian Cup Final Eight—and on the rise. Obviously, as always in these cases, the aftermath of the EuroLeague battles will weigh heavily, as will the prospect of playing a crucial game against Red Star Belgrade next Thursday. In Naples, Olimpia will be without Napoli’s former player Leonardo Totè, who reported flu-like symptoms. However, Stefano Tonut will be back, but only among the 12 players on the roster, while he waits to be able to actually return to the court. Quinn Ellis will also be available after his double precautionary stop during the last European week. Leandro Bolmaro will be available too. Then, Coach Poeta will have to rotate the foreign players, walking a thin line between the goal of winning and limiting the risk of overloading players. Olimpia is chasing a sixth consecutive league win in Naples, but their current streak has been mostly achieved at home—four out of five—after which the position at the end of the first half of the season and the path in the Turin’s Italian Cup will be finally known.

Tip-off time in Naples on Monday, January 12th will be 18:45.

COACH EMILIO KOVACIC – “Napoli is a team with a lot of talent, with players who can score and create points no matter what. We’ll have to pay particular attention to Naz Mitrou-Long, their leader, who’s an experienced guard, can score and make his teammates score at the same time, and to Amir Simms, who is one of the best stretch fours in the league, as well as having great physical size. Against a team with so many dangerous players, capable of playing one-on-one, and also strong inside with Croswell and Caruso, we’ll be called upon to play with focus and intensity for 40 minutes, knowing that Naples is a tough arena where no one can easily prevail.”

Zach LeDay

NAPOLI OUTLOOK – At home, they’ve won the last three games, showing impressive consistency. Coached by Alessandro Magro, who won an Italian Cup with Brescia and worked in Lithuania last year, Napoli boasts an experienced Italian core (Gentile, Treier, Caruso) and two Americans with solid experience in the Italian league, Naz Mitrou-Long and Aamir Simms. Mitrou-Long, whom Magro coached at Brescia, is a creative player, averaging 15.2 points and 5.0 assists per game, but also grabbing 5.8 rebounds on average and shooting 36.8 percent from three, which wasn’t his specialty. Aamir Simms, coming from Venice, is a powerful forward who can play two positions and knows how to open up the floor with his outside shot (50.9 percent from three on nearly four attempts per game). Simms is averaging 13.6 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. Guard Rasir Bolton (15.3 points and 3.8 assists per game) is a one-on-one player (61.1 percent two-point shooting on 7.9 attempts per game) and can use this to overcome an outside shot that is not his best option. Bolton played at three different colleges, finishing at Gonzaga—so, at a very high level—before spending a year in Belgium and another one in Subotica before coming to Naples. Small forward Savion Flagg (13.7 points and 5.1 rebounds per game), is in his fourth year in Europe and his fourth different league after playing in Greece, Germany, and Lithuania. The starting center is usually Guglielmo Caruso (4.6 points per game with 63.6 percent two-point shooting, plus 2.2 rebounds per night), but Ed Croswell (10.6 points and 4.3 rebounds per game), a rim runner (73.2 percent two-point shooting), a product of Providence College who last season was in Lithuania at Nevezis, has more minutes than him, coming off the bench. The sixth man is Ishmael El-Amin, a point guard from Rhode Island, who dominated the Bulgarian league three years ago and played in Israel last year with Hapoel Gilboa. He averages 9.3 points and 2.1 assists per game in about twenty minutes on the court. Estonian Kaspars Treier is another league veteran at the forward positions (averaging 3.4 points and 2.2 rebounds), while Leonardo Faggian and Stefano Gentile round out the rotation on a team that has four players averaging over 28 minutes per game.

Josh Nebo

THE NAPOLI CONNECTION – Stefano Gentile played for Olimpia during the 2007/08 season, with nine Italian league appearances. Naz Mitrou-Long was part of Olimpia in the 2022/23 season, finishing with 7.9 points and 2.7 assists per game in 14 Italian league appearances, culminating with winning the championship. Guglielmo Caruso played in Milan for two years from 2023 to 2025, playing 47 Italian league games. He helped the team win an Italian championship and one Supercup. Leonardo Totè played for Napoli in the second half of the 2021/22 season and in the 2024/25 season, with 34 appearances, averaging 13.5 points and 5.6 rebounds per game.

Shavon Shields

GAME NOTES – Armoni Brooks’ buzzer-beater against Udine last week was the twelfth game-winner scored by an Olimpia player in the last ten seasons, across all competitions. The thirteenth was Quinn Ellis’s three-pointer in the Super Cup semifinal against Bologna, which forced overtime (though that’s not a “winning basket”). Here’s the complete list:

PlayerGameOpponentNotes
Milan MacvanItalian Cup 2017 quarterfinalsBrindisiBuzzer-beating tip-in
Mindaugas Kuzminskas2017/18 Italian league regular season CremonaAlley-oop
Mike James2018/19 EuroLeague regular seasonEfesThree, 1.0 sec left
Vlado Micov2019/20 Italian league regular seasonCremonaBuzzer.beating three
Vlado Micov2019/20 EuroLeague regular seasonValenciaBuzzer.beating three
Malcolm Delaney2020/21 EuroLeague regular seasonMaccabiJumper, 3.5 sec left
Zach LeDayPlayoff EuroLeague 2020/21, Game 1BayernAlley-oop
Shavon ShieldsItalian league PO 2020/21, SF Game 1VeneziaLay-up, 1.7 sec left
Kyle Hines2021/22 EuroLeague regular seasonPAOFT, 1.0 sec left
Devon Hall2022/23 Italian league regular seasonBrindisiBuzzer.beating three
Nicolò Melli2023/24 Italian league regular seasonCremonaThree, 1.7 sec left
Armoni Brooks2025/26 Italian league regular seasonUdineBuzzer.beating three

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