TORTONA, There is always a possibility that it will happen, evoked by the usual hopeful auspices on the tiredness that the double championship-cup commitment leaves in the legs and in the heads of the players. Raise your hand, however, who would ever have hypothesized a “roll” of the kind at Virtus Bologna, at the hands of a newly promoted company like Bertram Derthona.
Although not at the top, the V Nere could count on above-average experience and talent for a Serie A freshman. everyone truly believed in the company with a deafening cheer and a perceptible impact.
Faced with all this, not even a team full of champions and phenomena like that of Sergio Scariolo, albeit in full definition of their collective equilibrium, could do much to oppose. The lions did not even have the pity to “grant” the Bianconeri from Emilia the honor of a point-to-point final, as happened in the other Bolognese defeat in Naples.
Rather, Ramondino’s boys have outdone themselves in playing Virtus against Virtus, rejecting it with a rocky physical presence in the painted area (just 2 baskets out of 4 scored under the basket and a scarce 39% immediately on 18 attempts near the foul line) to compensate for the already not too exciting 15/21 Bolognese on free throws. In addition, Bertram had the physical-mental intensity necessary to emerge in the rebound fight, both defensive and defensive, and in reading the movements of the ball to pin down juicy recoveries on the scoresheet.
Bologna annihilated above all in the characteristics of the offensive game, with the internal solutions giving greater substance to the overall calculation of the shots taken (only the right side of the area recorded a percentage of less than 50%, elsewhere instead between 65% and 80% of the achievements were traveled) and the triples to dig the decisive furrow in the score and in the emotional bag of the contest.
Now, the most important challenge for Tortona will be to evaluate a perfect evening for what it was, skimming the unrepeatable from what could instead be the basis for future victories, and not to lose the course of one’s path in the top flight, as recalls Marco Ramondino: «These two months of the season have said that definitive evaluations cannot be made. We have to be happy with the performance against Bologna but, as the match in Trieste was not fatal, this was not our best possible expression. It is necessary to put it on file and go our own way, earning us a step forward every day on many aspects of the game. There is still a lot of margin, we have to fight for possession in order to be the team we proved to be on Saturday ».
The short rotations, a little by choice (“Severini was not used not for punishment, but for evaluations made on what worked or not in the previous games”, the explanation of the Juventus coach) and out of necessity (Sanders out for a ‘ knee inflammation, likely consequence of a previous hip problem), certainly helped keep the quality of the game high. “Playing once a week it is difficult for the players to be able to produce something useful on the pitch with little time available” Ramondino comments.
But what made the difference against the Italian champions was the fact that he worked mentally on going beyond and moving on to the next action whatever would have happened on the pitch. For this reason, the Tortona technician was satisfied both for the quality of the executions, and above all for the team’s ability to do that obscure job that, at the stroke of the last siren, wins the games.