Basile among the eleven: blue door wide open

Grant Basile was also on the Rome-Reykjavik flight, which took off yesterday afternoon.

The American winger of Pallacanestro Cantù is ready for his debut with the Italian national basketball team, a debut – at least on the scoresheet – which will open up the possibility for the Cantù club to change his player status from untrained to “trained in Italy” .

There is no doubt about the fact that tomorrow evening, for the first of the two matches against Iceland, Basile will be on the scoresheet, barring obviously strange unforeseen circumstances. Because the injuries of his teammates actually opened the doors to a position for him.

The first injured player, who didn’t even reach the retreat at Acquacetosa in Rome, was John Petrucelli from Trapani: if he had been fit and eligible for recruitment, he would have been a very direct competitor for Basile, since you can only bring in one native.

Then, Saliou Niang, Trento’s centre-forward, another of Basile’s competitors in the position, left the meeting due to injury.

And yesterday afternoon’s news was that, before leaving for Iceland, Davide Casarin also had to withdraw due to a sprain injury which occurred during training in the morning.

And, without even Diego Flaccadori – who remained with Olimpia Milano due to Giordano Bortolani’s injury – being authorized not to join the team, in the end only 11 players left for Reykjavik. Which, in fact, opens a beautiful blue door to Basile.

Today and tomorrow morning Italbasket will train at the Laugardalholl Sport Center which, tomorrow at 8.30 pm Italian time, will host the first of the two matches against Iceland, valid for qualification for EuroBasket 2025.

Italy can already close the matter away, but will have the opportunity to do so on Monday evening at 8.30pm in Reggio Emilia: both matches will be broadcast live on Dazn, Sky Sport Uno and Arena.