The team from Murcia will receive the Turkish Darüssafaka at the Palace today, who has yet to win in the ‘top 16’, now without Jordan Davis
The UCAM players should be on a mini-holiday during the season itself, but instead risk a big chunk of their future ranking opportunities at the Palace tonight, when at 8.30pm the ball flies into the air to kick off his game against Darüssafaka .
A game, this, that is not the one that was postponed last week, when UCAM traveled to Istanbul to face their Turkish rival and woke up the next morning to the horrific news of the brutal earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. As a logical consequence of raising awareness of the tragedy, all matches involving Turkish teams were postponed, a decision that necessitated changing the original calendar and compressing it even more if possible, in order to prevent the Champions League would collide. other people’s national competitions, the cup weekend (not only in Spain) and the departure of international players with their teams for new ‘FIBA windows’.
The result was to move the game in Istanbul to the date scheduled in Murcia, March 7, and bring the latter forward to today, February 15, a week in which there were no Champions League games. Yes there is, and in fact it starts tomorrow, Copa del Rey. The fact that UCAM did not qualify for this edition and that the Turkish Cup has been postponed has ensured that this competition fits into the calendar.
For example, UCAM today plays a match that is completely marked in red because of its qualification possibilities for the quarter-finals of the Champions League. It was already on the original date, but now even more so, since the men of Sito have to defend the palace after a last European match in Murcia, the one in Bilbao (90-72), which produced such a good result.
And it is that making your pavilion a fortress again is the key to a path with fewer obstacles for the pass to the qualifiers leading up to the ‘Final Four’, especially when you consider that Darüssafaka has been beaten in both games played so far ( against Bilbao and Tenerife) and that keeping its status as an unwinnable team after playing with its three group mates would bring the standings very uphill. Given this and that, it obviously costs a lot more to win away from home.
Yesterday, leading up to the game, Thad McFadden was the first to point out this value of today’s hypothetical victory in Murcia, ahead of a “dog-face” game against some Turks who need a win much more than Sito’s Alonso. A team, Darüssafaka, in which Ryan Luther played two seasons ago, made their debut in the Champions League after years in the Euroleague and the EuroCup, a competition they won in the 2017-18 season.
This one from the Turks is a macro project that came to naught, as so many arise from time to time in Ottoman basketball, which appeared almost out of nowhere for the general public in the 2014-2015 season, when they returned to the top flight of their country. By the way, the last time they were relegated was with Quincy Douby in their squad, a Murcian hero who saved the 2011-12 season. With a huge investment in his return to the forefront, including signings like national idol Ermal Kuqo or Reinaldas Seibutis shortly after he showed his strength by bringing back David Blatt from the NBA after managing LeBron James in the Cleveland Cavaliers or turning specialized in acting as a springboard for big players in Europe, in the case of Brad Wanamaker, who would jump from there to Fenerbahçe and later to the NBA.
Today, the Darüssafaka is sponsored by the tire brand Lassa, then ‘sponsor’ of Barça. Among the most used players are some familiar faces from the Endesa League, such as Gabriel Olaseni, formerly of Fuenlabrada, who is the most prolific player (13.1 points and 6.6 rebounds per game) or the recently signed Aaron White and Matt Mooney, used by Tenerife and Unicaja respectively.
Alejandro Gómez, who appeared yesterday to explain the departure of Jordan Davis and warned that “we are not going to sign just to sign”, took the opportunity to warn about Darüssafaka. “We are going to need our people, they are a very physical rival, very good and in good shape,” warned the general manager of UCAM CB.
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
