By Cesare Milanti/ info@eurohoops.net
TORINO – Far from an easy task, Germani Brescia won the Italian Cup for the first time in team history. Defeating both EA7 Emporio Armani Milan and Virtus Segafredo Bologna, initially tabbed as the hot favorites, made it even sweeter, as detailed by Christian Burns.
“We played our guts out. We are all extremely happy, obviously. It’s amazing that we won the championship,” was his immediate reaction after Brescia prevailed in the championship game of the Frecciarossa Final Eight Sunday.
Burns, 37, has been all around Europe since turning pro in 2007. But outlasting the team coached by Ettore Messina in the quarterfinals, eliminating Carpegna Prosciutto Pesaro and taking down Sergio Scariolo’s Bologna outfit in the final, is certainly extremely hard to replicate in any kind of surroundings.
“Yeah, it’s definitely up there,” he replied to a question about ranking it as the best moment of his career, “I would say so, because of the way that we won it. Coming in as an eighth seed. Beating Milan with their full roster. Beating Bologna with their full roster. We really won this thing. It wasn’t like somebody else got an upset game and we played somebody else.”
The experience big, a former player of AX Armani Exchange Olimpia Milan from 2018 to 2020, went on putting the label of a real championship to the triumph in Pala Alpitour.
“We beat Milan and we beat Bologna. So, I think that’s a real, real championship,” he added, “No question.”
Burns averaged 6.7 points and 3.7 rebounds per contest in the eight-team tournament.
Making history, the team coached by Alessandro Magro became the second eighth-seeded side to go all the way in the Italian Cup. Umana Reyer Venice registered the first such improbable accomplishment in 2020.
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