Tonight the appointment is signed at 20:45 in the Martin Carpera Arena. Live on FoxSport HD.
In Andalusia everything is ready for Turkish Airlines Euroleague Round 4. Dinamo Sassari will challenge the court’s owners of Unicaja Malaga. It’s the 1st time in the history that the two teams will play against. Spanish present themselves with 3 European wins while Dinamo is serching its 1st European victory. The game promised to be tough and compelling, as lot of Sardinian fans that are arriving in Malaga wish.
The rivals (font: www.euroleaguebasketball.net). Unicaja Malaga comes off a great season in which it reached all of its goals and was competitive on all fronts. Unicaja returned to the Top 16 for the 10th consecutive season, an achievement that only Maccabi Tel Aviv, FC Barcelona and Panathinaikos Athens can match; reached the Copa del Rey semifinals; and was one win away from the Spanish League finals after leading its regular season for 21 rounds. FC Barcelona stood in its way to glory in a close, do-or-die semifinals Game 5. Founded in 1977 as Club Baloncesto Caja de Ronda, it wasn't until 1992 – when it merged with cross-town rival Maristas – that it started to challenge for bigger goals. Everything clicked in 1995 when Unicaja came within a shot of winning its first Spanish League title. Mike Ansley missed that shot in Game 4 of the finals and the club would have to wait until 2001 before it could celebrate its first crown. Unicaja, led by Coach Bozidar Maljkovic and star scorer Veljko Mrsic, was finally rewarded by winning the Korac Cup over Hemofarm Vrsac in the two-game final. Unicaja followed that by reaching the Spanish League finals in 2002 and the Euroleague Top 16 for the first time in 2003, which proved to be the cornerstone of a bright future. In 2005, Unicaja lifted the Spanish Copa del Rey trophy for its first domestic title behind star forward Jorge Garbajosa. And things got even better the next season; Unicaja won the Spanish League championship with Garbajosa and home-grown talents Berni Rodriguez and Carlos Cabezas among those leading the way for Coach Sergio Scariolo. A year later, Unicaja marked its greatest continental success to date by reaching the 2007 Euroleague Final Four in Athens, led by Daniel Santiago, Carlos Jimenez, Cabezas and Rodriguez. Even though CSKA stopped Unicaja in the semifinal, the club had confirmed its status among the European elite. Unicaja advanced to the Copa del Rey title game in 2009 before losing in overtime against Tau Ceramica. Despite the lack of trophies, Unicaja has been consistent, especially in the Euroleague with its long Top 16 run. Coach Joan Plaza and players like Jayson Granger, Carlos Suarez and Fran Vazquez made Unicaja even more competitive over the last two years and helped bring more and more fans to Palacio de Deportes Jose Maria Martin Carpena. Unicaja advanced to the Spanish League semifinals in each of the last two seasons; basketball is in fashion in Malaga and the stage is set to challenge and reach even bigger goals in the 2015-16 season.
The game from Euroleague Basketball’s eyes. These teams play each other for the first time ever. As always, Sassari will try to run the floor and needs Rok Stipcevic and MarQuez Haynes to dominate the game tempo. Stefan Markovic and Nemanja Nedovic must be ready to step up on defense and prevent Sassari from running. Unicaja has many options at the wings, and Mindugas Kuzminskas has been a mismatch for everyone until now. Jamar Smith, Dani Diez and Edwin Jackson give coach Joan Plaza many alternatives to play against Christian Eyenga, David Logan and Giacomo DeVecchi. Sassari needs a good game from Jarvis Varnado and Joe Alexander around the baskets, with the help of yet another very athletic big man, Brent Petway. Fran Vazquez and Will Thomas must be ready to box out at all times, Carlos Suarez and German Gabriel must stretch the floor against Petway while Richard Hendrix will be critical for Unicaja in this game in order to slow Alexander down low. Expect a good crowd and a nice basketball atmosphere at Martin Carpena.
Technical Analysis from Dinamo Assistant Coach, Massimo Maffezzoli. Unicaja Malaga is a very tough team. They are getting amazing results in the European Competition while are suffering a little bit in the Liga Endesa. Unicaja has a long roster: 10 of their players play from 12 to 24 minutes. After an high level playing in the European Games, Kuzminskas is continuing to make the difference on court with an average of 17 points per game, 73% of 2 points-shoot and 2 offensive rebounds. The coordinator is Mr Markovic, Serbian player whom played in Treviso at the beginning of his career. He’s making an average of 7 assists per game. Guard of the starting five is Jamar Smith (that we met when he played for Bamberg): he’s a very good shooter. Unicaja can count on its other 2 guards too: Nedovic and Jackson that can make very important perfomances. The team can have an umbelievable support from its big men: the former Avellino player Will Thomas and the former Olimpia Milano player Richard Hendrix that have respectively an average of 62% and 79% in 2 points-shooting. Coach Plaza can find the support of the experts Suarez and Fran Vasquez, the former Bilbao German Gabriel from his bench
Quotes. Coach Meo Sacchetti: "We're going to meet Malaga, a great team with experience in Euroleague, athletic, tough with a real physical way to play. It's always difficult to play in Euroleague, expecially road games, but we'll arrive to Malaga for trying to win.
Even if we lost the three previous rounds, we understood which are our skills and possibilities. Against Darussafaka we played very well for 35 minutes, we made some good things against Cska and Maccabi, too. We'll must start with a great aggressiveness, physically and mentally, to overcome the mismatch between us and them. Our team is improving day by day, big men are getting more confortable on the court, understanding their role in this Competition".
Jarvis Varnado: "I’m very happy to play my first Euroleague, I'm trying to find my place in this Competition round by round. Usually I play against great players and I think this will be very important for my career and my personal growth. We'll go to Malaga focus for winning, in Tel Aviv we played a great half time against one of the greatest European teams. The key? I think will be a great defence, with many steals to open the court and running like we love doing. We have to be solid for 40 minutes, without blackouts that we usually pay too much".
Curiosities. David Logan has made at least 1 three-pointer in 15 consecutive Euroleague games.
Logan has made 12 consecutive free throws in Euroleague action.
Logan is the Euroleague co-leader in steals through three games this season with 3 per game. He shares the lead with FC Bayern Munich point guard Bradley Wanamaker.
Denis Marconato is ranked 10th in competition history in rebounds. He needs 31 more boards to reach the 1,000 milestone for his career.
Marconato needs 4 more offensive rebounds to catch Aleksey Savrasenko for 10th place on the competition’s career charts. Marconato is 12th with 290 offensive rebounds; Erazem Lorbek (291) is 11th.
Rok Stipcevic was a teammate of Unicaja big man Richard Hendrix in the first few months of the 2013-13 season at EA7 Emporio Armani Milan.
Christian Eyenga scored a career-high 21 points last week against Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv.