betprepare.com

The season starts far too soon as far as Bilbao are concerned

Real signed only two new players and, despite their key players were away during pre-season, they are looking good and well-coordinated. Bilbao signed a lot of new players and their former assistant coach is now their head-coach.

The defending champions are coming to Vitoria after they went through the whole pre-season without some of their most important players. So, it is easy to understand coach Pablo Las when he says that the main goal for them in this tournament is to improve their teamwork. Lots of Real's players were representing their nations in the Eurobasket (Draper, Llull, Rodriguez, Rudy Fernandez, Ioannis Bourousis). Bourousis signed for Madrid from Milano and that was one of the two changes we saw in the Madrid team during the summer. The second new face in the locker room is another great center - Obradoir Salah Mejrij.


Mirza Begic, Rafael Hettscheimer and Martynas Pocius are no longer in Madrid. All other players from last season are still there, and 20 year-old forward Daniel Diez is now training with the senior team.


They played 7 matches during pre-season and, as we mentioned, it would be foolish to draw any conclusions about their strength from those performances. In the last game they were more or less complete, though. They won 86-69 against Estudiantes and they key moment of the match was 27-7 series in the middle of the game. Rudy scored 24, Mirotic 15 and Rodriguez 11 points. Coach Pablo Laso can count on all of his players today and against Estudiantes Llullo, Rudy, Diez, Mirotic and Bourousis were in the starting lineup.


- Bilbao are a very tough opponent. They are playing close to home and I am certain a lot of their fans will be in the stands. We must be focused on our own game, play good in the defense and try to dominate them in the offense. Since we weren't complete during pre-season we couldn't exactly prepare ourselves for the Supercup. But, most of the players from last season are still here and I am sure we will perform good - playmaker Sergio Llull said.


Sergio Rodriguez said almost the same thing:


- The team is practically unchanged from last season. With the same game plan and the same ideas. That makes things a lot easier since lots of our players were away in the pre-season - he said.


Bilbao are in completely different position than Real. They completely changed their team since last season. Katsikaris is no longer the head-coach, and his assistant took over the team. Zisis, Vasileiadis, Hamilton, Moerman are all gone. German Gabriel from Estudiantes is probably the biggest new signing and his replacement will also be a new face in the club - Anatans Kavaliauskas. Dairis Bertans is the new shooting guard, and Jackie Carmichael from Illinois will play his first european season for Bilbao. He is a great blocker and rebounder.


Pilepic, Grimau, Hervell, Mumbru, Raul Lopez and Samb survived the summer in Bilbao. Mumbru, Gabriel, Hervelle and Bertans were competing in the Eurobasket during pre-season.


- We had 2-3 trainings before the Supercup. We played a lot of friendlies and there was just no time for trainings. This will be a great test of our current ability. But we already know we have a lot of space for improvement. It is still too early to predict how we will perform this season. There is a lot of new faces in the locker room and we need time to get to know each other. The season definitely starts far to soon as far as we are concerned - Mumbru said.


He is also aware that Madrid are a far better team right now:


- They performed good in the pre-season, and they changed only two players during the summer - he said.


Bilbao played two matches since some of their most important players have returned from Eurobasket. They lost to Gipuzkoa Basket (known as Brusea in the last season) 72-57 and won against Canarias 87-82. Lopez, Bertans, Mumbrua, Hervelle and Carmichael were in the starting lineup in both matches. Grimao scored 15 points, while Bertans and Gabriel scored 14 each.


Interesting fact, next Sunday Bilbao will play a friendly game against Philadephia 76ers in front of their own crowd.

Real managed to keep almost their entire roster during the summer, they changed only two big men and they acquired better players - Bourousis and Mejri, everything else stayed the same. So, the fact they had not had the chance to practice together a lot due to the Eurobasket will not be a problem, this is a team of players that know each other and they won against Bilbao last season by 20 and 14 point. And that Bilbao was much better that they are now. The Basks have a new coach, they lost some of their important players such as center Hamilton, guard/forward Vasileiadis, play Zisis and power forward Moerman. They have many new players, some of them played at the Eurobasket (Mumbru, Hervelle, Gabriel) and their best player Mumbru said this game comes to them at the completely wrong time. I think they have no chance today.