And in the first real game of the year, with the first level opponent, with the full team, the Old Wild West melted like snow in the sun. Loses 73-54. The partial 23-15 with which Pistoia, a very solid team, dominated the third quarter is a sentence: Udine is not yet a team, at least not against credible opponents in this A2 series. To those who saw her play, she gave a worrying feeling of confusion. God forbid, the season is long, but the Tuscans have demonstrated one thing at the Apu: with clear hierarchies, a not necessarily infinite bench with high-sounding names (on paper), the championship is won. Scafati proved it in June.
Varnado for Pistoia is the tip of the iceberg of a strong team, Boniciolli sends Esposito on first and Gaspardo on the other, bad result, Briscoe starts from the bench and Udine with very wet powder. To have a basket from the Apu you have to wait more than three minutes and 8 errors. 5’30” from the end of the quarter Sherril blows up the building with a triple, but the Tuscans, pushed by about sixty noisy fans, lead the dance. Varnado, as we knew, is a great player, but Briscoe comes in, warms up his hand and above all puts his teammates in rhythm: 16-16 at the end of the first quarter, given Udine’s 2 out of 11 shooting, it’s a half miracle.
Udine defends, strong, Antonutti fights and the long-distance duel Briscoe and Varnado (brother Jarvis won the NBA title in 2013 with Lebron in Miami) is succulent. The Apu accelerates then stalls. He bloody continues to play in flashes and, as November draws to a close, the doubt arises that the defect is congenital. Except that if you do it with Rimini or Mantua you get along, with Pistoia, great defense, no. The ball thrown away by Antonutti is only the beginning of the end: 32-29 for the Tuscans at the long interval. Udine cannot start from 30 percent shooting. Winning is essential for two reasons: not complicating life in the future and, above all, giving a signal to the championship. Instead the Apu shows the worst: partial 4-0 Pistoia ahead 36-29. If you let it go, you never take it back. The faces of the bianconeri are not convincing. The palace, as always in these cases, becomes depressed. Seen before.
With the spare pivot Delchiaro who, shut up, split the game. When Pollone beats up Briscoe without the referees whistling one meter away and Boniciolli gets a coach, the match is at a crossroads. Antonutti misses a triple that a couple of seasons ago he would have scored with his eyes closed, Wheatle. A triple in transition by Briscoe, which makes it 49-44 with 2′ left in the third quarter, is the last gasp of a lost team. Gaspardo and Mian out of the match, Pellegrino and Palumbo out for a long time. Sherrill inaccurate, Briscoe tries to believe it but is beaten with impunity by his rivals. The Apu plays badly, there are no certain references on the pitch, it gives a very worrying feeling of confusion. Bellrosa’s three-point basket at the end of the fourth sent the Tuscans into ecstasy and put the end credits to the match ten minutes from the end.
The fourth quarter is agony, the disappointed crowd displaces, the Tuscan fans sing “the league leaders are leaving”, the match sadly ends. This hard lesson cannot be categorized as a faux pas. Pistoia gave Udine a game lesson. Who must understand how to have twelve players, the young Fantoma would play in any team in A2, including Pistoia, strong on paper is useless. If then it is the others who win.