Alessandro Ramagli enjoys Gruppo Mascio Bergamo’s return to success

“What made the difference in our win in Rieti was the different energy level put on the court between us and them, a different mental and physical energy load between us and Rieti but that is typical of this intense league. Rieti came from an unbelievable game won on Sunday in Verona, we had lost an equally unbelievable game at home against Cremona on Sunday and we probably had a greater desire to redeem ourselves after a difficult moment and that made the difference on the court.”

Coach Alessandro Ramagli, after his Gruppo Mascio Bergamo’s 88-68 success at the PalaSojourner in Rieti, praises the collective presentation of his team (which, it should be remembered, is playing without an American, the injured D’Angelo Harrison) and analyzes the difficulty of a national championship that on Sunday will reach its 12th day in just eight weeks, from Sept. 20 onward.

“It’s clear – stresses the coach from Livorno – that the physical impact when playing such close games makes a difference and shifts the balance, and in our win in Rieti it did, because you have a hard time recharging your energy. We also see this situation in the Euroleague, where teams that rotate 18 players struggle to have continuity. There is no national second division league with as many games to play as ours, it doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world: so we all have to get used to no longer having the old one-game-a-week mentality on Sundays. We played on Sunday against Cremona, then we left on Tuesday for Rieti traveling seven hours, played in Rieti in the evening and made another seven-hour trip back and on Sunday we play again against Scafati and who knows if we will still have the same load of physical and mental energy on Sunday or not. But this championship is like that, and I say it in the Livorno way: ‘we have to make ourselves like it,’ because it will be like that from here to the end of the season,” Coach Ramagli concluded.