Euroleague, Virtus Bologna restarts with a success: Luca Banchi exalts his team

Virtus Bologna beats Valencia 87-74

After a twenty-day break, Virtus Bologna returned to the parquet floors of the Euroleague and did so with a fine victory against Valencia in the 27th day of the regular season of the continental competition: at Virtus Segafredo Arena Luca Banchi’s men imposed themselves 87-74, propelled mainly by Marco Belinelli’s 16 points, Jordan Mickey’s 14 (with 7 rebounds), Isaia Cordinier’s 12 and Gabriel Lundberg’s 11.

The words of Luca Banchi

The coach of the Black Vu, Luca Banchi, entrusted his thoughts on the match to the official channels of the Bologna club: "A very tough match as we expected – he said -, Valencia è always a very aggressive and physical team. Both teams came to this match with many uncertainties and question marks related to a very short preparation".

"I think our team responded great to adversity" – added Banchi, exalting his own -, our è was a common effort that allowed us to control the game. First of all we celebrate the victory and then the ability to overturn the basket difference. Let’s not forget that we lost the Valencia game by eight points, so this è a positive aspect that è better to emphasize, since we came to this game with a lot of uncertainties and with the Injury of Shengelia at the beginning. We responded as a team and made a very mature performance".

Virtus Bologna coach: "Important team performance"

Banchi does not want to talk about individuals: "I think you would be doing a disservice to a team that provided ahigh-profile performance and the numbers testify to that,” he explained. “Valencia has one of the most effective and efficient defenses in the entire Euroleague, we managed to collect a good number of two-point conclusions. It’ s difficult even for top teams to be able to do it as often as we did".

"We tried to take our attacks long aggressively, we containedonly to 8 the number of lost balls, of which I think one or two are offensive fouls. All of this is testimony to a high-profile quality of performance. If I named only a few I would be wronging others, I think it was the manifesto of an’important team performance" concluded the Virtus coach.