Olympic Qualifying: Andrea Bargnani Stars As Italy Beats Tunisia
Host Italy had all the NBA talent in its Olympic qualifying tournament opener against Tunisia and the results showed.
In the first game of Pool B in the FIBA Olympic qualifying tournament, Tunisia took on the host nation Italy. Unfortunately for Tunisia, Italy had all the NBA talent on their side and the result showed as Italy dominated, 68-41.
Italy more than doubled Tunisia’s rebound count, 49-24, in the blowout.
They also had better ball movement with almost double the Tunisian assists, 17-9. To go with that however Italy had 17-11 for Tunisia.
The top scorer for Italy was ex NBA player Andrea Bargnani who had 15 points on 7-of-12 shooting in only 17 minutes. He also had six rebounds to go with one steal.
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Danilo Gallinari did not score well; putting up only six points on 2-of-7 shooting in on 19 minutes. He did collect nine rebounds, sharing game-high honors, so did his job well.
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scored 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting in just 16 minutes. He also collected one steal.
Former NBA player Luigi Datome played 19 minutes without scoring, but did collect three rebounds.
Tunisia was missing its only NBA player, Salah Mejri, and it showed as they were only able to score 41 points.
Tunisia’s best player was Mourad El Barouk, who scored 11 points on 4-of-8 shooting in his 24 minutes of playing time.
One of the many stories of the night was the shooting of the two teams. Italy shot a respectable 50 percent on the night, compared to Tunisia’s 22.2 percent. From three, Italy shot 42.9 percent, Tunisia 25 percent and from the line Italy shot 80 percent to Tunisia’s 62.5 percent.
You could stop the tale of the tape there with that being a fairly reasonable explanation, but quite obviously there is more to see.
Italy dominated the points in the paint 28-10. Tunisia really missed the size and skill of Mejri. He could have defended the paint a little better and converted more on offense.
Italy is also a team with greater depth than Tunisia. They got 34 points from the bench compared to Tunisia’s 14.
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Both of these teams have to play the remaining team in Pool B, Croatia. The scary thing is that Croatia is the second-best team at the tournament behind Greece.
By the looks of it, Tunisia will not go through to the next round. For them to make it they will have to upset the tournament favorite.
Italy takes on Croatia Tuesday and we will see how far Italy has come in the world rankings, their low ranking really does belie their talent.
Tunisia then take on Croatia on the final round of the tournament before the finals.
Italy does not need to win Tuesday, assuming that Tunisia does not beat Croatia on the final day.
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Italy will likely play Greece in the crossover round of the semifinal. This will be a fantastic result for the team with the lowest world rank at the tournament.
Tuesday, the Pool A match is Iran vs Mexico and the Pool B match is Italy vs Croatia.