Euroleague, Virtus Bologna falls in Piraeus: Luca Banchi explains bad third period

Euroleague, Olympiacos-Virtus Bologna 74-69

Against a reality of great tradition such as Olympiacos, it is enough to make a mistake in even one of the four quarters to arrive at the final siren with a defeat. This is evidenced by Virtus Bologna’s ko at Piraeus: what characterized the 74-69 final è was in fact the 20-5 third period for the biancorossi, while the other three quarters added up saw Virtus score 64 points while conceding 54.

Luca Banchi harsh after Virtus’ knockout

Luca Banchi, on the sidelines of the game, was not è soft with his own: "C’è a lot of frustration – said the coach of the Black Vu’s -. We had a very good first half, we expected them to come back better but we did not react at all, at the team level, to their aggressiveness. We completely screwed up our approach after halftime".

"We still have to congratulate Olympiacos,” Banchi added, “however, we cannot help but think about the decline in the quality of our basketball in the second half, especially in offense: the number of lost balls è increased, the number of assists dropped. They were more aggressive, we made bad decisions".

Black Vu’s playoff run gets dicey

"To win this kind of games 30 minutes are not enough, you have to play 40, all excellent" commented again the coach born in 1965, grappling with the second consecutive defeat after last Sunday’s league one against Sassari, and with a generally lackluster period, since between the league, Italian Cup and Euroleague came three defeats in the last four games.

For the Black VUs, Thursday night’s was a heavy loss also from the standpoint of the standings: in fact, Virtus is now in the Play-in zone, in seventh place, although it has the same record (17 won and 11 lost) as the fifth and sixth, i.e., Olympiacos and Fenerbahce, which close the playoff zone. The other top positions are occupied by Real Madrid (22-6), Barcelona (19-9), Munich (18-10) and Panathinaikos (17-10). Behind Virtus, between eighth and 10th place, however, are Maccabi Tel Aviv (15-13), Baskonia (14-13) and Partizan (13-14). L'Olimpia Milan è fourteenth, with 11 won and 16 lost.