Hard debut for a new project at Bilbao Basket
The cards are already on the table and you have to start playing them. Surne Bilbao Basket kicks off its eighteenth season in the Endesa Leaguethe one that implies an important change of faces, and it does it in the same place as the previous one, the Olympic Palace of Badalona. The Joventutsemi-finalist last year wait for the men in blackor with a high-level squad and the competitive pace that the Catalan League and the Super Cup gave it. Jaume Ponsarnau’s team has been persecuted by bad luck since the preparation began and it still hasn’t left him. Agustín Ubal has been diagnosed with viriasis, an infection of the respiratory tract that will keep him out in the first gamesand will force Iñigo Betolaza to take his place in the calls.
But the regrets must be separated in an unusual and very demanding succession of games and now it’s time to compete in the best way possible. The premiere is against one of the best teams in the competition, who also want to become strong at home. ” Joventut is in the group of important teams and we must stay there”, says Carles Duran as a statement of intent. The black-and-white, who last year showed stretches of great collective basketball, have kept nine players from last season and have only added Kyle Guy, William Howard, who is a doubt for today, and Henry Ellenson. In addition, they hope that the European champion Joel Parra and the Dominican Andrés Feliz, whose good performance led the club to part with Ferrán Bassas, will continue their progression.
Just the opposite happens in the Bilbao Basketque He has nine new pieces in the first team that Ponsarnau directs. In the construction process typical of these dates, Joventut has to go much further, which is why the Biscayan team must apply itself with all five senses and try to reduce errors. “Joventut is able to be at the level of the four in the Euroleague for quality, for continuity and for having proven players and a coach who has been with these players for a long time and fit into the philosophy. It is a franchise that is going up”, points out the Bilbao Basket coach.
Grow up together
Ponsarnau believes that the Vernegros form a “very demanding team, with a lot of individual and collective capacity” who is going to require his people to “do things very well”. Beyond the result, today’s game is “a test of improvement” and should serve to “grow together and in the long run be more competitive.” Also so that the three Bilbao Basket players who are making their debut in the Endesa League (Smith, Kyser and Andersson) land in the reality of a competition that they all consider the best in Europe and so that the others contribute their experience and vindicate themselves afterwards of an atypical preseason.
The first day has already offered some clues in the sense that the games may have a high rhythm, which the spectators will undoubtedly appreciate, “but the players will also have more energy and it will be important to extend the teams”. “We have to learn, but the first feeling is that we can take advantage of it”, explains Jaume Ponsarnau, who in all these weeks has shown great confidence in the possibilities of his team. Today It’s time to take the first step in search of the goal of being one of the sixteen best in the competition.