Trapani –
Coach Banchi’s words in the post-game of Trapani, valid for Round 1 of LBA 24/25: “Very important win, also for the way it came. 15′ of great quality in the first half and a few too many mistakes that gave confidence and inertia to a very good Trapani. But we showed a lot of strength in the way we won it. Now we hope to get everyone back, it’s going to be a long season, a long road, and in every game we will have to be able to find a way to play our basketball. It is not a duopoly, last year we won the regular season with 8 losses.Those who make Europe spend a lot on travel, injuries, and a team like Trapani is already ready to try. However, it was a good week of work, we managed to give training excerpts to Cordinier and to Grazulis who is still a long way from a good condition: so many reasons to take what we were given, now some newcomers will have to be quick to find harmony with their teammates because with this jersey wherever you play you are expected to have a special competition.
We must not lose sight of the fact that so many teams have been working since August 1, we could not start until after the 23rd, so we have 3 weeks of delay: Belinelli is still behind, so many still have to get to know each other, we will have to find the right cruising speed later in the season, so evaluate our peak performance as early as now, even not. There are errors of concentration, I don’t think we have suffered too much Robinson: others have boosted their defensive aggressiveness, what I have to do is to limit the impact of the errors of a changed team, which has had an abnormal preseason, but which has the potential to dictate a basketball that could give us satisfaction, if we have the humility to put everything at the service of the team.
Get the ego down, file down a lot of details and hope we are healthy to see the team as we envisioned it. Today you have to spare judgments, you just have to squeeze the team for those you can at a time where mistakes are part of the game, where some players have to change their characteristics: Robinson has had time to get into the game, we can hardly give such minute playing time. We got a little lost in the final, a few lapses that could have cost us the game, but let’s restart from the final minutes, from cynicism, from perfect defenses that almost didn’t let Trapani score again. We will go back to the gym on Monday to raise the level a bit: we had lost a bad friendly against Milan and there was already talk of a one-sided championship, we just have to find our mode of operation even on uninspired days. And winning here will not be easy for anyone.
Euroleague? Our hope is to have the best season we can, last year we did the feat of being in the top six for a long time, we paid dearly for injuries by arriving focused, we made it to the scudetto final after a wearisome year and where, unlike Milan, we didn’t have a moment to rest. We arrived at the Scudetto final with different physical and mental energy, but it was a year of pride and gratification. I don’t know what awaits us, I am sorry for the injuries that have altered our preparation, Shengelia is on his 10th missed practice, Belinelli missed the preseason sharply, Cacok is stopped, Grazulis back. But we will have to try to have the longest season possible, I don’t know if with the peaks of last season but it would be nice to give our square a trophy. There are so many competitors in Europe, and in the league the newly promoted are Trapani and Trieste: to say that Milan and Bologna monopolize is not intellectually honest, this is the toughest league on the continent.”
