Bologna –
Four points on Milano with a double confrontation and five games to play, are an insurance on the supremacy in the regular season that Segafredo can hardly loose. But, besides the numbers, there is the impression of a team that sweeps where it passes, grown in everything and not only thanks to the big names but also to a weapon originally considered unusual, the “French connection”. Indeed the “connexion française”.
Isaia Cordinier, who dives on the parquet like the Barthez of the good old days, symbol of Olympique Marseille of which Isaia is an avid fan, and Mam Jaiteh, on the contrary on the PSG side, assumed as an unreachable totem of the area. Never have both of them been so smart as in this 2022. Jaiteh’s numbers in the championship say that in the new year his competence range is the high one: almost 13 points and more than 8 rebounds, close to 65% from two and 73% from the line. Of the team, especially when decimated, he has often been the top dog, red-hot in the areas, pegged with points, defense and rebounds, proving to have the whole catalog. In the meantime also the four double-doubles, the last one against Milan, moreover in full Ramadan fasting in progress. For Cordinier, March has instead decreed his reign, with over 10 points, almost 5 rebounds, over 2 assists, 61.3% from average, 26 from long range and 90.4% from the line. In April even better, even 13 on average, 89% from two and almost 42% from three. Two pillars that became such when he presented himself to the new audience as a theoretical backup of Udoh and as a substitute for Abass, the two long term patients of the season’s thick infirmary. A movie already seen in the last year, when the growth of Gamble and Weems’ performance certified the company’s flair to fish for valuable pieces even among non-famous clubs. With the two French players, the same path has been followed, the one of finding talents even from not very valuable mines: Jaiteh, although he was in the national team for a long time, played in the Turkish championship at Gaziantep, Cordinier instead, last year at Pau Orthez, was just back on the market, after having played his cards in the NBA. Because in addition to the usual nobility of trade, new frontiers and new horizons, useful to bring out the ideal figures with whom to share the project, are increasingly expanding on the Virtus Segafredo radar. A project that should be defined as virtuous, perhaps the most suitable definition.
