Italbasket: Nine Top Italian National Team Players Join Luca Banchi in Folgaria

The roster of the Italian national basketball team under head coach Luca Banchi is now complete at the training camp in Folgaria. As scheduled, Leonardo Candi, Nico Mannion, Stefano Tonut, Nicolò Melli, Simone Fontecchio, Darius Thompson, Amedeo Tessitori, Giovanni Emejuru, and Giampaolo Ricci joined the training camp in Folgaria today. At the same time, the nine players who participated in the first few days of training—Alfredo Boglio, Stefano Conte, Filippo Gallo, Matteo Gherardini, Marco Restelli, Riccardo Salvioni, Willis Tio Tiagande, Lorenzo Vanin, and Mauro Zacchigna—have concluded their stint with the senior team and have returned to their respective clubs.

Banchi wanted to highlight the contribution made by the nine young players called up for the first phase of the training camp, emphasizing above all the attitude they displayed from day one. “I am very satisfied with the commitment, participation, and dedication these players demonstrated during the first part of the training camp. From day one, they brought energy, enthusiasm, and a great willingness to contribute, fully dedicating themselves to the work and the team,” explained the head coach.

For Banchi, the value of this experience goes beyond the purely technical aspect. “Their contribution was also significant in terms of their ability to quickly create a cohesive and collaborative environment. This is exactly the spirit with which we embarked, as early as the end of 2025, on a path toward increasingly broader involvement of players from Serie A2 and Serie B.”

The Federation’s strategy is to gradually expand the national team’s roster by offering opportunities to players who are making a name for themselves in the Italian leagues. The numbers, in this regard, confirm the scope of the project: since November of last year, 39 players have been called up, 25 of whom have appeared on the score sheet in official matches, while 13 have participated in the senior team’s training sessions. In addition to these figures, there were two mini-camps dedicated to players from Serie A2 and Serie B.