Virtus Segafrdo Bologna bounced back from last season's disappointment, becoming the first-ever Italian team to make it to the 7DAYS EuroCup Finals.
One year later, Virtus veterans showed the way
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A year ago, Virtus won its first 19 games in the 7DAYS EuroCup, going undefeated through the regular season and the Top 16, sweeping Joventut Badalona in the quarterfinals and taking a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three semifinals against UNICS Kazan.
Alas, none of that was enough, as UNICS won the next two games, qualifying for the finals and leaving Virtus to wonder what went wrong.
Flash forward to the team's single-game, do-or-die semifinal on the road against Valencia Basket on Wednesday, and some of the Virtus players who went through that experience last season stepped up big in a 73-83 victory that sends them home next week to play Frutti Extra Bursaspor of Turkey in the EuroCup Final.
Marco Belinelli had 14 points and 3 steals, Milos Teodosic finished the game with 12 points and 4 assists, and Kyle Weems got 8 points and 5 rebounds. Toko Shengelia was the team's biggest contributor with 15 points, 3 assists and a PIR of 16. Shengelia, a EuroCup champion with Valencia in 2010, earned a second chance to lift the trophy.
The season was not a bed of roses for Virtus, which lost two key players, Ekpe Udoh and Awudu Abass, even before the EuroCup season started. Nicolo Mannion, Kevin Hervey, Teodosic and Belinelli were also out for a significant periods of time. Under those circumstances, Virtus make the right moves in the player market, bringing in Jakarr Sampson, Isiaia Cordinier and above all, Shengelia and Daniel Hackett, who joined the team right before the signings deadline.
It took Virtus some time to show its best version, but head coach Sergio Scariolo's team finished the regular season strong, with three consecutive victories. Once in the playoffs, Virtus had to battle hard to beat Lietkabelis Panevezys in the eighthfinals, 75-67, and ratiopharm Ulm in the quarterfinals, 83-77. Center Mam Jaiteh played a stellar role in both games, getting 20 points against Lietkabelis and earning the MVP honor for the quarterfinals with 27 points, 11 rebounds and a PIR of 38 against Ulm.
As such, Virtus is back to a European competition final, the 11th in club history. It won two Turkish Airlines EuroLeague titles, downing AEK Athens 58-44 in 1998 and surviving an unforgettable five-game playoffs series against Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz in 2001. Its first continental crown was the 1989-90 Saporta Cup, edging Real Madrid 79-74. Most recently, Virtus won the EuroChallenge in 2009 and the BCL in 2019.
The club wants to go one step further now, winning Europe's second-tier competition and earning the right to play in the 2022-23 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague. To do so, it must beat Bursaspor, whose forward John Holland knows what it takes to eliminate Virtus in Bologna, because he did it with UNICS a year ago. Virtus hopes it learned from that experience to go all the way this time.