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Joventut can start to dream after overcoming mental hurdle

Joventut can start to dream after overcoming mental hurdle

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16 April 20233 Mins read

Geoff Gillingham

Joventut can start to dream after overcoming mental hurdle

When Joventut Badalona was eliminated by ratiopharm Ulm in a 1-8 matchup in the 2022 7DAYS EuroCup Eighthfinals, it left many of the club's supporters wondering what could have been. This year, the Spanish side yet again made it to the eighthfinals, this time as the No. 2 seed, but it overcame its mental block to defeat the seventh-seeded London Lions 89-78 to book its place in the quarterfinals. At last, Joventut's fans can dream again.

It was not necessarily a vintage performance by Joventut, with London remaining in the game until the latter stages of the fourth quarter, but the hosts did enough to always keep the visitors at arm's length. In fact, in a game that Joventut led from start to finish, the closest that London got after the opening make of the game – a three-pointer by Guillem Vives – was finding itself down 24-20 a few minutes into the second quarter.

There were various points in the game where London appeared to be on the verge of a comeback, particularly in the third quarter, but Joventut always came up with big buckets to ensure the gap never got smaller than 6 or 8 points. For London head coach Ryan Schmidt, that was one of the big differences between the two teams: "That's a team tonight where every time we got it to 6 or 4, they'd make you pay and they'd get it back to 8 or they'd get it back to 10. That's just where we need to get to."

Joventut finished the game with six players in double figures, led by Ante Tomic with 16 points, and that variety to its offense caused London all sorts of problems. London, for its part, had three players reach double figures, while star player Sam Dekker, who was not 100% after suffering an ankle injury in Round 17, finished with 8 points. One of the keys to the game was Joventut's ability to get second-chance opportunities, as it more than doubled London's number of rebounds, bringing down 50 compared to 23 for the visitors. What's more, of those 50 boards, 15 came on the offensive end.

The 19 turnovers that Joventut committed will perhaps be a cause for concern for head coach Carles Duran, so that is something that his squad will look to clean up before it takes on another of the favorites to win the EuroCup, Hapoel Vegan Friendly Tel Aviv, in the quarterfinals.

Joventut and Hapoel enjoyed equally impressive home records in the regular season, going 8-1, but this is where seeding becomes important. As the No. 2 seed from Group A, Joventut will be able to host this game at Palau Olimpic de Badalona because Hapoel ended the regular season as the No. 3 seed in Group B. For what it's worth, Hapoel is 5-4 away from Tel Aviv in 2022-23.

"The crowd always [helps us]. When the Olimpic is like this, it's much easier to play," said Tomic after the win against London. The Joventut fans will need to once again be out in full force when Hapoel comes to town, as the visiting team is expected to bring thousands of fans to Badalona in the hope of making it feel like a home game for their side.

Yet, for Joventut, overcoming its nightmare from last season means that it can now start to dream, albeit in the knowledge that it will be a very difficult game against a Hapoel team that had eight MVP of the Round winners during the 18-game regular season (J'Covan Brown x2, Jalen Hoard x2, Jordan McRae x3 and Chinanu Onuaku).

There is not much to separate the two teams, but with Tomic's ability to create from the 5 position, the playmaking of Vives and the scoring of youthful quartet Joel Parra, Kyle Guy, Henry Ellenson and Andres Feliz, Joventut has no reason to be pessimistic. All six players finished the eighthfinals tie with London in double figures and they will pose a big threat against a Hapoel side that has struggled on the road.

One year on from one of the toughest defeats in Joventut's recent history, the club can now look forward in the knowledge that it needs just three more victories to reach the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague. But ask anyone at the club and they'll tell you the same thing: "We're taking it one game at a time."