The curse of Trento continues to haunt Varese Basketball. On the parquet of the BTS Arena, the Biancorossi were defeated 87-85, a result that extends to nine the series of consecutive kos against L’Aquila, a taboo that has lasted for years and that the Lombard team cannot break despite the different opportunities they have had in the season.
Weighing on the outcome of the match was above all an episode in the final: on the score of 85-85, David Duke Jr stumbled upon a mistake that the VareseSport editorial staff called a costly naivety, in fact opening the door to the Trentino victory in the last, decisive, possessions of the race.
Analyzing individual performance, the picture of the red-white evening presents marked lights and shadows. Among the positive notes stands out the performance of Hale, author of a test judged masterful by local critics, while among the disappointments appears Kamagate, who remained for large sections of the race on the margins of the rotations decided by the bench. On the other hand, the evaluation for Alviti, indicated as the most balanced element of the team both in the offensive and defensive phase, also capable of dragging the teammates from the character point of view in a complicated moment, is more than sufficient.
At the end of the game, it was Coach Kastritis who took stock of the defeat, without hiding the bitterness for how things turned out. “A heavy defeat for us,” said the Varese Basketball coach, lucidly identifying the causes of the debâcle. According to the technician, three factors in particular condemned his men: the free throws granted to opponents, the too many offensive rebounds left available to the Eagle and an excessive number of balls lost throughout the match, elements that together compromised the balance of the challenge in the most delicate moments.
The defeat of Trento represents a further wake-up call for a Varese that struggles to find continuity against this specific opponent, despite the individual qualities present on the roster. The data of the nine consecutive ko certifies a structural difficulty that goes beyond the single episode of the finale, even if Duke Jr’s error on the 85-85 remains the symbolic image of an evening in which the Red Whites had still built the premises for a different result.
Now the team will have to quickly archive this disappointment and focus on the next league commitments, trying to correct precisely those gaps – offensive rebounds conceded, generous fouls and possession management – that Kastritis has pointed to as the main causes of the ninth consecutive misstep against L’Aquila.
Written by Fabio Averna
Article produced by the AiSportNews newsroom with the support of artificial intelligence tools.