Coach Peppe Poeta reunites with his former team, Brescia, the first he led as head coach including the majority of the roster (the only exception is CJ Massinburg), but this time the Italian Cup final is up for grabs. This year Olimpia beat Brescia in the Super Cup final at the Forum, then lost in a sprint to Brescia in the regular season and suffered a comeback from their opponents in the return match at the former Palalido. This match is on a neutral pitch. Olimpia beat Brescia in the 2022 semi-final in Pesaro and just last year in Turin but again in Turin they lost the 2023 quarter-final. Brescia will be without playmaker Nikola Ivanovic (shoulder); Olimpia lost Ousmane Diop in the quarter-final (strained right thigh flexors: he will be re-evaluated in two weeks) who had been decisive with his presence inside the area in support of Josh Nebo. The difficulties of the match are evident: Brescia is the team that executes the most free throws and the most three-pointers in the entire championship but is also the most accurate in both statistics (84.3% from the foul line; 38.4% from the arc), thanks to the presence of a high-level internal game with Jason Burnell and Miro Bilan. Therefore, defensively, Olimpia will have to cover large spaces and control expert, quality players who induce fouls and commit few of them. Brescia is first in fouls suffered and first in terms of fewer fouls committed (the balance is +4.2). Della Valle in the last two games against Olimpia was 22 of 24 from the free throw line. This is the data to work with. The team trained in Moncalieri in the afternoon, tomorrow morning Coach Poeta and his staff will decide whether or not to confirm the six foreigners in the quarter-final.
ITALIAN CUP NOTES – EA7 Emporio Armani Milan-Germani Brescia will be played on Saturday 21 February at the Inalpi Arena in Turin at 6.00pm live on Sky Sport, LBATv and Cielo. The other semi-final Bologna-Tortona will indicate Olimpia’s eventual opponent in the final on Sunday 22 February at 6.00 pm.
THE REFEREES – Saverio Lanzarini, Manuel Attard, Valerio Grigioni.
COACH PEPPE POETA – “We will have to play a match of great energy and physicality to try to interrupt the mechanisms on which the most tested and experienced team in the Italian championship is built, a group that has been playing together for a year and a half and expressing itself by heart”
BRESCIA OUTLOOK – Brescia is now a well-known opponent, the most experienced team in the championship which in fact reaped the fruits of its continuity by leading a championship even if in the last round they lost in Varese paying for the absence of Nikola Ivanovic (13.4 points and 4.3 assists per game). However, the answer was a clear victory over Udine in the quarter-final. Without Ivanovic, the point guard is the expert CJ Massinburg (8.9 points per game) who has the physicality of a guard, can play two positions and turns on offensively in an instant. In the season, he averages 22.5 minutes of usage but since Ivanovic has been out this has risen to 27.5. Amedeo Della Valle, who always started in the quintet, is the player most used by Coach Cotelli, 31.2 minutes on average. He scores 17.5 points and distributes 4.8 assists per game, takes 7.1 three-pointers and converts them at 40.7%, but he also shoots 91.9% in free throws with 4.0 fouls drawn per game. In his last five outings, he has scored 22.5 points per game. In the last match played against Olimpia he scored 31 points, a season record, but above all he shot 15 free throws thanks to the eight fouls suffered. Demetre Rivers (9.0 points per game), an athletic small forward who plays 24.4 minutes but always starts in the starting five. Rivers is a three-point shooting specialist, especially from the corners: he shoots 38.7% on 4.8 attempts on average, almost double the number of two-point shots he makes. He too is very precise from the foul line, 18 out of 20 so far. Power forward Maurice Ndour is also the player who moves to the nominal center position when Bilan goes to the bench. He scores 10.7 points per game on 53.8% from two. His favorite shot is from medium distance, in the area of the free throw line. He is also the third rebounder on the team with 5.2 per game. Miro Bilan is the internal column of the team: it is his presence that determines Brescia’s play as he goes inside and comes back out with space. The Croatian center plays 29.1 minutes on average, scoring 14.5 points per game with 58.8% from two on 9.6 attempts. He suffers 4.6 fouls per game and shoots 4.1 free throws even if he isn’t very accurate (65.6%). Furthermore, he is the best rebounder in the league, 9.0 per game of which 3.5 are offensive rebounds. Containing Bilan is the problem that every team has: individually, it is very difficult, but doubling him (2.3 assists on average) means exposing oneself to the shots of the Brescian specialists. The bench, with Massinburg in the starting five, counts on David Cournooh (4.2 points per game) among the wingers; Joseph Mobio (3.2 points, 44.8% three-point shooting) among the big men but above all on Jason Burnell. With 26.8 minutes of usage, he is fourth on the team in minutes, plays both small forward and power forward, is a low post player comparable to Bilan (52.2% from two on 7.1 attempts), he is also good at drawing fouls (4.0 per game) and is infallible from the foul line (94.1%). Finally, he is an underrated rebounder, 6.8 per game of which 1.9 are offensive rebounds.
PREVIOUS Vs BRESCIA – In history, Milan and Brescia have met 56 times with 42 successes for Milan and 14 for Brescia. Olimpia is 23-3 at home; 15-10 away; 4-1 on a neutral pitch. The balance includes the semi-final of the 2018 Super Cup which was played in Brescia but should be considered a neutral venue, the result being 81-59 in favor of Olimpia; the 2022 Coppa Italia semi-final won again by Olimpia in Pesaro with a score of 69-63 (22 points from Sergio Rodriguez); the quarter-final of the 2023 Italian Cup won by Brescia in Turin 75-72; the semi-final of the Italian Cup again in Turin in 2025 won by Olimpia 74-69; the Super Cup final played in Milan this season and won by Olimpia 90-76 with 18 points from Josh Nebo. The teams have faced each other three times in the championship playoffs. In 1981/82, quarter-finals, the then Cidneo came from the A2 championship. Billy won 2-1 in their quest for the championship but still lost in Brescia, 78-71. In 2018, Olimpia eliminated Brescia in the Scudetto semi-final by winning 3-1 with two away successes. Brescia’s only victory was in Game 1 in Milan (85-82). In 2024, still in the semi-finals, Olimpia won all three matches, winning 3-0.
LA BRESCIA CONNECTION – Olimpia coach Peppe Poeta coached in Brescia last year where they reached the Scudetto final, losing against Virtus Bologna. Amedeo Della Valle plays in the Brescia team and played 48 league games in two seasons with Olimpia Milano between 2018 and 2020. He won the 2018 Super Cup with Olimpia.
ITALIAN CUP NOTES – Olimpia Milano has won the Italian Cup eight times in its history, like Virtus Bologna and Treviso, the other two teams that lead the success rankings. He played in 13 finals in total (8-5), while his run came to a halt in the semi-finals nine times. The first final dates back to the 1969/70 season, in Rome, where Olimpia was beaten 74-66 by Ignis Varese who also secured the Scudetto and Champions Cup that season. The first victory came in 1972, at the Pala Ruffini in Turin, with the same opponent but a different outcome. Olimpia won 81-77. That season he also won the Cup Winners’ Cup and the championship where he defeated Varese in the play-off in Rome. Olimpia then won in 1986 and 1987 on a neutral pitch in Bologna, again against Vuelle Pesaro. In 1996 he won the Final Four in Assago, defeating Verona in the final. To get to the fifth success we would then have to wait until 2016 again at the Forum, 82-76 against Avellino the final act. Olimpia repeated the following season in Rimini, beating Sassari 84-74 in the final. New double in 2021 and 2022, first in Milan and then in Pesaro, against Pesaro (87-59) and Tortona (78-61) respectively. Overall, Olimpia is 107-47 in Italian Cup matches, equal to 69.5% of victories. Rolando Blackman (1996), Rakim Sanders (2016), Ricky Hickman (2017), Gigi Datome (2021) and Malcolm Delaney (2022) are the Olimpia players who were MVPs of the Italian Cup.
