messina Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 It’s confirmed Siskauskas, Popovic and Mordente (along with long term injured Zisis) won’t travel to Ljubljana, while Drew Nicholas is rated as doubtful, but he could get some minutes. If we add Benetton can’t gain anything with a win, it’s obvious Blatt (new coach of Russian national team) will mostly let second stringers play and not risk much before Cup tournament next week. Olimpija has only slight chances of proceeding to the top 16 phase, but it doesn’t mean they gave up. Besides their win against Benetton, they need Cibona to lose against Efes (pretty much probable), Milano to lose home against Olympiakos (highly unlikely) and Prokom not to win by 33 points or more (a sure thing). In that case they would get a top 16 ticket as the best 6th placed team. Anyway, regarding their coach Sagadin is one of those who doesn’t let his players relax even on a friendly, we shouldn’t doubt that they’ll push even if bad news from Milano come. Benetton so far managed to beat only Strasbourg (78-76) and Aek (83-57) away from home, and they aren’t good travellers neither in national championship (4-5). As they’ll miss 4 very important players against very motivated Olimpija, i just can’t rate them as favourites.Olimpija to win the match(-1 handicap) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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