Bancoroma Champion of Italy 1983 – from:wikipedia.org
Article by Giovanni Manenti
Although the second Team sport in terms of popularity obviously behind football, the Basketball in the Bel Paese has never found favor in the big cities, with the exception of Milan – from his 38 Italian Champion titles, 30 of which were won by Olimpia alone – and Bolognawhich follows at a safe distance with its 18 statements, 16 of which are the prerogative of Virtus and 2 of Fortitudo…
Among the other regional capitals, the only one stands out Venice, which with the “glorious” Reyer can boast four titles, with the last two obtained (2017 and 2019) in very recent timeswhile the Capital saw one of its clubs at the national top only in the pioneering era of this Discipline, with the “Ginnastica Roma” to have won on four occasions, namely in 1928, 1931, 1933 and 1935.
To see a Roman team capable of entering the fight for the Scudetto again, almost 50 years must pass after the Virtus Aurelia, founded in 1960, merged with Bancoroma in 1972, thus giving life to Pallacanestro Virtus Romawho entered the then Serie C Championship…
The climb up the hierarchies of Italian basketball is quite fast, given that already two years later the newly formed club obtained promotion to Serie Bto then access Serie A2 at the end of the 1978 season and therefore, after only two years of purgatory, obtaining promotion to Serie A1 in 1980.
However, the arrival in the elite of Serie A1 is not traumatic for the Capitoline quintet, who concludes his debut season in tenth place with a record of 13-19 and remains in the running for a place in the Playoffs until the final daywhere the defeat of just one point (92-93) suffered in Bologna in the direct comparison with Fortitudo was decisive…
Almost similar situation the following season, with the same placing, albeit with a slightly better record (14-18), while Billy Milano won the title by beating Scavolini Pesaro 2-0 (89-86 and 73-72) in the Playoff Finalreturning to celebrate a Scudetto that had been missing in the Lombard capital for exactly 10 years and coinciding with the second star for the twentieth success in the Club’s history.
Objectively difficult to think that Bancoroma (from the name of its sponsor…) could be able to overturn hierarchies in the space of just 12 monthswith a staff substantially made up of players born in the capital, among whom they emerge Enrico Gilardi, Fulvio Polesello and Stefano Sbarrabut something changed in that summer of 1982…
First of all, who is hired coach the 39-year-old Valerio Bianchini, who in a three-year period at the helm of Cantù had won the Scudetto and the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1981 and the Champions Cup the following season, and then enriched the squad with a “bigwig” such as the 28-year-old US point guard Larry Wright, who after winning the NBA title in 1978 with the Washington Bullets – and reached the Final again the following year – he had been sidelined by the Detroit Pistons.
Virtus did well to intercept him, just as, during the season, the second foreign choice is alternated, with the Championship started by Kim Hughes and concluded by Clarence Kea, a power forward from the Detroit Spirits, a franchise in the CBA minor league, while which other thick reinforcement must be mentioned the hiring of the Italian Marco Solfrini, taken from Brescia and already silver with Italy at the 1980 Moscow Games…
Wright’s presence in the control room represents the key to transforming a lineup of honest players into an almost perfect machine that allows itself to compete for first place in the “regular season” to Billy Campione d’Italia, concluding the same with 22 victories and 8 defeats (with Wright leading scorer averaging 22.2 points per game…), at the end of an extremely balanced Tournament, as certified by the third place occupied by Scavolini Pesaro, Ford Cantù and Sinudyne Bologna with a record of 21-9.
This situation made it possible to predict a Playoff series that was nothing short of incandescent, with Milan prevailed 2-0 (75-60 and 81-80) in the historic rivalry with Varese, while Roma does the same to eliminate with a similar 2-0 (67-54 and 65-63) Gorizia, while the other two quarter-final pairings are much more exciting and hard-fought, with the Scavolini needing the third match to win (96-73, 90-103 and 96-85) against Berloni Torinowith finally the challenge between Bologna and Cantù representing a sort of anticipated Final…
Reigning European Champions the Canturini (now led by the expert Giancarlo Primo…) lost 81-88 in game 1 on the Emilian parquet, to then equalize the series thanks to the narrow 86-82 in front of the friendly public and then complete the feat of conquering the Sinudyne field 80-74 and thus earn the right to face Bancoroma in the semi-final.
Still with the disadvantage of the field factor, the Lombards repeated the blow of Bologna by winning 70-67 in game 1 with the well-founded hope of “close the accounts” taking advantage of the friendly parquet, but this time the same ones don’t come back and impose themselves on the “Slipper” I am the guests with a clearer 74-66, and then counting on the contribution of almost 15 thousand fans for game 3 which brought Virtus Roma to the Final for the first timethanks to a convincing statement for 82-75…
All those who, after the victory in race 1, had already chanted the “From the depths” for Bianchini’s quintet, predicting the usual Milan-Cantù challengevice versa, was staged in a single race on March 24, 1983 at “Sports Palace” of Grenoblebut in a very different context, namely the Champions Cup Final.
Race largely conducted by Canturini who find themselves ahead by 7 points (69-62) just 38″ from the siren, only to suffer the desperate comeback of the “red shoes” which however stops one step away from completion (69-68) when Vittorio Gallinari’s last shot is blocked…
So here is Dan Peterson’s quintet, emerged victorious from the three battles (93-71, 89-100 and 87-73) against Pesaro, only the Playoff Final remains to save the seasonwith the field factor however favoring Roma which makes the Palaeur available for such an appointment whose first act was staged on Wednesday 14 April 1983.
I am 14 thousand tickets sold for a record taking of 115 million old Lirawith viewers who don’t even want to miss “the challenge within the challenge” between the two technicians Bianchini and Peterson, as promises sparks the confrontation on the parquet between the two point guards Wright and Mike D’Antonibut the protagonist of the Capitoline evening is the 26 year old Gilardi, “top scorer” of the match with his 35 points, well assisted by the former NBA star who scored 22for an 88-82 success which bodes well for the final outcome…
Obviously, the pride of Milan is no exception, so much so in race 2 played at “Sports Hall” at San Siro, Olimpia wins 86-73 with a wider margin in a challenge that went down in history for Peterson’s move to entrust Wright’s marking to a big man like Gallinari, a 2.04 m compared to a 1.85 m.
Everything postponed to 19 April 1983, therefore, for a match broadcast live on television and involving the whole of Italyif only for the clash between two metropolitan realities which, unlike football, had never been seen on a basketball court, and for which, therefore, exactly 14,348 tickets are sold, record still unmatched in our territory…
Dragged by its audience and probably aware that such an opportunity is unlikely to arise again in the future, Bancoroma ends the first half ahead (50-41).a good lead but not entirely reassuring knowing the reaction capabilities of D’Antoni & Co., but Wright directs on his own and, after the home team extends the lead (75-64), the fate of the match and the Championship is sealed with the decisive break for +16 (80-64) with just over 5′ remaining at the end.
In a jubilation in the stands, D’Antoni and Meneghin also raise the white flag and, at the siren, the definitive 97-83 certifies the conquest by the “Virtus Roma Basketball” of a Scudetto which to define as historic is perhaps even limiting, certainly unexpected even on the part of those 1500 brave men who had started the season following the team atPalatitian“, and then increased tenfold when the title was up for grabs at the Palaeur, when it is much easier “get on the winner’s bandwagon” …
Curiosity, three weeks later, thanks to the 1-1 draw at Marassi against Genoa, Roma also returns to celebrate in football a Scudetto that has been awaited for over 40 yearsevidently it was a period in which the stars looked favorably on Sport in the Capital.
And, then, the important thing was not to miss the wonderful opportunity…