Scafati, October 1st –
Coach Banchi’s words, after the debut victory, to the DAZN microphones: “A game a bit of a roller coaster after a good start, the first minutes of the game were very promising, we were able to play on the rhythms that are a bit more congenial to us, then after that some difficulties started. Credit to Scafati who changed register causing many lost balls that somewhat compromised the quality of our basketball and the consistency of our defense. As said, uneven pace, perhaps logical at a time like this in our league, we are at our debut game, so much material to analyze and so much work to do, because this is the atmosphere of the league, this is the atmosphere of away games where teams like Scafati never give themselves away.”
Coach’s words in the press conference, “It is never obvious to start with a victory. The championship gives different atmospheres, for us it was an important baptism that already gives the dimension of what it means to play in this league. Obviously, ours is a team built also on a basis of continuity linked to the presence of experienced players, who know well what it means to play in this league, where teams like Scafati have shown, even tonight, that they have the talent, the personality and also the pride to try to change the inertia of the race. What then happened after a few minutes of supremacy, Scafati changed the register, played with the aggressiveness that we all give them credit for, with the widespread talent on the team, thus putting us in trouble. We were not always accurate, you saw: the number of lost balls testify to that. We have to learn to be a little more cynical, we are only in the first league game and my experience with them is only three games. Some of them, like me, have come straight from the World Cup. So they still have to figure out where they are, however we file this contest with satisfaction because I think we take home an important victory against a team that, I guessed from the roster, knowing Pino and his ability, both to select players and then to prepare them, that it was going to be a tough game. But our start was really convincing, bit we also clung a little bit to our experience, to the fact that we have so many potential problem-solvers, on the quality of our game, both on offense and defense. As obvious there is work to be done. This is the first day and, as I said, coming back to Bologna with a win was not a foregone conclusion at all, so I congratulated the team because they showed that they had the personality and the determination, in the final minutes, to control this game, because it had not become easy at all.
Achilles is an experienced player, who knows our league and also knows very well the teammates he has on his team. I think there will be no particular difficulties for him, both from the physical point of view and from the technical point of view, he simply has to try to bring his game and tonight, in terms of energy, you know, especially in rebounding, we had talked during the week how he could from the beginning be able to guarantee a boost to this team. I think he showed that tonight, at least in terms of what he did in rebounding where, in general we suffered, the numbers speak for themselves, we conceded too many second chances. Scafati has very atypical quintets, they have vertical players, especially Rivers and Gentile take away reference points, we had to work better as a team. But Achille can give us a contribution from this point of view, we are just starting, he has done a few days of work with the team, I think he can be an important added value, also because his characteristics go to change a little bit the dynamics of the team. When he goes to play in the 4 we can play on different spacing. We hope to find him in the best shape from here soon.”
