Bertram ecstasy, the Provincial Derby is black and white
Novipiù Casale Monferrato-Bertram Derthona 77-82
(15-17, 36-38, 54-61)
Scoreboards:
Casale: Tinsley 10, Banchero ne, Musso 8, Valentini 10, Cesana 5, Denegri 3, Battistini, Martinoni 20, Pinkins 21, Cattapan, Giovara ne, Lazzeri ne. All. Ferrari
Derthona: Tuoyo 9, Cremaschi, Ganeto 2, Blizzard 22, Buffo, Ndoja 22, Ugolini ne, Lusvarghi 2, Viglianisi 8, Gergati 17, Spizzichini ne. All. Ramondino
Bertram Derthona returns to success, winning the provincial derby against Junior Casale, at the end of a match that the Bianconeri led for large stretches, managing the reaction in the final quarter of coach Ferrari's team with personality and determination. Bertram made a sprint start and, driven by the initiatives of Tuoyo and Ndoja, produced the first break of the match (5-12 at 4'): Denegri and Martinoni then gave Casale the lead (with a partial of 8-0). The baskets by Blizzard and Viglianisi, and the penetrating one by Pinkins, close the first half (17-15 for the Bianconeri in the 10th minute). In the first minutes of the second period the substantial balance between the two teams remains: then a couple of offensive plays by Gergati widen the margin of coach Ramondino's team (28-24 at 16'). In the final quarter Pinkins and Musso impacted the match at 35, before a break produced by Viglianisi allowed Bertram to go into the break with a 38-36 lead. Upon returning from the locker rooms, Derthona once again took off better, led by Blizzard's baskets which forced coach Ferrari to interrupt the game at 50-42 in the 25th minute. After the reaction of the home team, it is Ndoja who pushes the Bianconeri again, who end the third quarter leading 61-54. At the start of the last quarter, the increase in defensive pressure from the Junior allows the home team to get back in touch in the score: after Pinkins' lay-up on the break, which makes it 58-61, coach Ramondino stops the game. Triples from Musso and Tinsley, in sequence, were worth Casale's overtaking (66-65 in the 35th minute): then five straight points from Blizzard stopped the partial in favor of their opponents and gave the Bianconeri the new advantage in the match. After the baskets by Tinsley and Ndoja, coach Ramondino's team maintains a two-possession lead: Pinkins' subsequent attacking foul and Blizzard's triple put three possessions between the two teams (79-72 with 30 seconds to go). Casale's offensive errors and the sequence of free throws rewarded the Bianconeri, who won the derby 82-77.
So coach Ramondino: ʺI have to pay big compliments to my players, who were able to play a high-level match: we are on the right path but we are aware that we still have great margins for improvement over the course of the season. Our week was more regular than the last few, we had players available in the gym every day and the chance to work on ourselves for a long time. Compared to the club's summer prospects, what we are doing is not enough: today, however, the team performed excellently from a technical point of view. From my point of view, I tried to think as little as possible about the emotions I would feel, as I wanted to enjoy whatever was going to happen. I spent four wonderful years at Casale, today the club is ready to go even further with a new technical guide and new players: their prospects are rosy..
So coach Ferrari: ʺWe must congratulate Tortona for the game of great mental depth that he played, we must think about the many mistakes, even important ones, that we have made and try to start from this. Today we didn't have brilliant management of possessions compared to other times: we were often out of control thanks to Tortona's defence. With five minutes to go, with the lack of clarity of our wingers and the percentages, it was a miracle to be in the lead: now everything seems very bad, that we have taken a hundred steps backwards or a disaster, but instead we only lost one home match. During a season a team must know how to go through a thousand situations, and this is a situation we would have found ourselves in: we had put it back on its feet, almost managing to win it. We shot many times from the field, shot more free throws, grabbed 14 offensive rebounds: out of twenty-seven baskets we made twenty-five assists. We knew that the match was long, with the inertia of those playing at home we had gone to +2, on the other hand Gergati was very good: the players' ability to be on the pitch at certain moments of the match made the difference. Our choice to be so young leads to these types of mistakes: sometimes it's not easy to understand that being a starter is different from being a young player coming in. We will work to ensure that this disappointment becomes anger and positive energy to play better in the next matches: when I talk about the path, we need to parameterize the length of this path. A team like ours can think about taking more time, because having so many young players implies a situation of this type, it's not something that can be built in three months. We gave good ideas, even today with the wingers playing in a confusing way, being able to put this match together is a great gain. There is no need to prosecute the team, the responsibilities at the limit are mine based on what the players do: today we got a slap..
