Bertram in Athens to challenge AEK and its coat of arms. Squarcina's words on the eve of the BCL challenge
Second commitment and second away game in the Basketball Champions League Top 16 for Bertram Derthona Tortona. The black and white team is awaiting the challenge tomorrow, Tuesday 4 February, at 18:30 Italian time against AEK Betsson Athens at the SUNEL Arena, a nine thousand seat facility in Ano Liosia, a suburb northeast of the center of the Greek metropolis. For Tortona it is the second time this season in Athens after the winning blitz in mid-January against Peristeri for the decisive 2-0 in the Play-In series. This time they are chasing their first win in Group I after the sprint defeat in their debut in Würzburg, while the Athenians are looking for their second consecutive win at home after having won the derby against the other Greek team in the group, Promitheas Patras, beaten by a large margin 97-76 with 21 points and 8 assists from 27-year-old American point guard Hunter Hale, top scorer in the BCL with 15.7 points for a team that shoots well from three (fourth among the 32 Champions League teams with 39.2%) and from the field in general (fifth with 48.7% overall).
HELLENIC GLORY The challenge in Athens pits Bertram against the most famous club in Europe faced in these first two years of BCL. In addition to 8 national titles and 5 Greek cups (the last in 2020), AEK boasts the triumph in the Champions League of 2017/18 followed the following year by the Intercontinental Cup and, going back in time, a Cup Winners' Cup and a Saporta Cup, without forgetting the final reached in 1998 in the then Champions Cup and lost against Virtus Bologna. The yellow and blacks reached the Top 16 by winning the first phase group with a 4-2 score, ahead of Telekom Bonn, Maccabi Ramat Gan and VEF Riga, while in the championship they occupy third place in the standings behind the unreachable superpowers Panathinaikos and Olympiacos, with a record of 9 wins in 17 games including last Saturday's winning sprint at the home of bottom team Kolossos Rodi, beaten 86-85 with a basket with 18" left by ex-Trento player Prentiss Hubb, one of the three old acquaintances of Serie A together with the veteran ex-Milano Mindaugas Kuzminskas (best scorer of his team in the championship with 14.4 points on average) and the 2.08 Grant Golden, last year in Cremona. There is also an additional piece of Italy on the bench, given that the 72-year-old Serbian-Greek coach Dragan Sakota brought with him from last season's experience in Brindisi the assistant Andrea Vicenzutto.
STRAUTINS OUT Arturs Strautins did not leave for Athens pending the outcome of the instrumental tests on his right knee, ordered by the medical staff following the sprain he suffered during the last match in Trieste.
WHERE TO SEE IT ON TV The race will be broadcast live on DAZN.
STATEMENTS “There is a certain charm in facing AEK, thinking about who has passed through there, the fact that Tortona was not yet on the European map when players like Nikos Zizis played for AEK, just to name one, and instead now we can compete against them.”, says the assistant coach Iacopo Squarcina. "It will be exciting to be able to play a game like this, even in a difficult period for us, but it is precisely in these phases that we need to keep the bar straight, play together, make simple choices without wanting to overdo it and without thinking of solving it alone. It will be important to make more defense, take one more rebound, grab one more loose ball, all those little things that can direct the match in our direction. As said, it is prestigious to challenge AEK but it must be faced without reverential fear, indeed with the awareness that we have to go there and win. Period. Like all away games - keep it going - it is already problematic in itself, in the sense that you have to be good at dealing with the journey and a series of consecutive matches combined with the travel. Therefore, one of the things that we will have to be able to implement is not to be overwhelmed by tiredness and instead find the mental stimuli to stay on track even in difficult moments, which is not a given. Therefore, the mental aspect will be a key aspect to impact the match well and then give the push at the decisive moment”.
