Virtus Two weeks to turn the season around

"If all goes well we are ruined". Social media does not forgive and the mood of the black and white fans, after the exit from the Coppa Italia, is at an all-time low. And if the fans are used to excesses, for better or for worse, it is not that at home Virtus the air is the best. Long faces and tense faces: because losing to Milan is normal. Losing by playing only a quarter is not. And that is where the present and future start again. Yesterday no punitive training, because the team returned to the city around 4. But from today, until February 28, the day of the challenge of Euroleague with Olympiacos, there are two weeks to try to make sense of the season. Ivanovic raised the bar: "We will win the title". The tricolor remains the only objective: after the Supercup final thrown away and a Euroleague in which Belinelli and his teammates were unable to repeat their previous path.

Long faces and tense faces because nobody likes to lose. Nobody, at Arcoveggio, likes to lose against Milan and nobody likes to leave the field with a feeling of impotence. Which is what the Virtus: after a balanced first quarter, the group has thrown in the towel. Milan, tricolor for three years, is considered stronger. Olimpia, moreover, continues to add players. Someone gets hurt? Milan intervenes. As in the case of Nico Mannion.

La Virtus Holiday added – who did not arrive in Turin – but is suffering from problems that have been dragging on since the summer. The team was designed with Cacok. We know how it went: the result is that Devontae was never replaced. Then Zizic and Clyburn stopped. If Holiday can be a replacement for Will, no action was taken under the basket. With the result of using Grazulis as a tactical five. But the Latvian, moved to the role of center, has a limited performance.

Finished? Given that the team has a high average age (Belinelli will soon turn 39, Hackett is 37, Holiday, Clyburn, Shengelia, Polonara and Grazulis are all over 30), even the corporate events do not help to give an idea of ​​compactness. In addition to the dismissal of Cacok, there were the resignations of Banchi and the exit of Luca Baraldi. Is everything to be thrown away? In the summer, with the game over, something (a lot or a little will also depend on who holds the purse strings) will have to be done. The only way forward, now, is the one indicated by Ivanovic. Who used the word title, to raise self-esteem. But to get to the end, you have to work, in the gym. The commitments of Euroleague they take away energy and hours of work: in these two weeks, until the eve of the match with Olympiacos, the Montenegrin coach will have the opportunity to work as he wants.

And maybe the two weeks will be useful to him, to clarify certain issues. Because if the number of turnovers or the poor percentage in long-distance shooting are structural problems of the group, the coach will also have to rethink the quintets and minutes. The players go on the field, but there is someone on the bench who must show the way. And the match with Milan, like some previous ones, left him with some doubts about the effectiveness of certain (technical) choices. Hoping to recover Clyburn and Zizic. Zizic could return with Olympiakos. Early April, instead, for Will, whose rehabilitation is proceeding.