The Spanish Cup and Murphy’s Law hurt Betis Baloncesto

By Tuesday, just 48 after the duel in the WiZinkBetis had a minimum effort plan for many of its players and calculated in all cases with the aim of avoiding injuries, distributing loads and dosing minutes thinking, since the cup match had no significance in Sunday’s match against to San Pablo Burgos. That although it does not yet have the rank of final with a lower case letter (or it does), its importance is not lost on anyone given that the Castilian-Leonese, leaders, have not yet lost and are right now the main candidates for direct promotion.

Betis’ plan, however, was blown up after three minutes with the injury to one’s foot. Ruben Lopezwhom Gonzalo García had included in the starting quintet, after playing just four minutes in Madrid, with the idea that he would recover his sensations. It was not the only bad news of the game. TO Renfroe He was allowed to rest in the second half, after feeling very overloaded at the break, and in the last four minutes the problems became a plague: Pablo Marinwho was completing a notable performance, injured his ankle and Kasibabu, in a spectacular fall, suffered a significant blow to his lower back that left him very sore. They have all undergone tests but for now the club has not communicated any official medical reports. We have to wait for the results.

In one fell swoop, Betis Baloncesto lost four players with mishaps of varying degrees, thus joining Jelinek, who will still be out for several weeks after fracturing the fifth metatarsal of his right foot. With this panorama before the appointment with San Pablo Burgos, the assessment of Gonzalo García, green and white coach, could not be different: «Quite negative. Our only objective was to return with the same people we had come with. We had monitored the time of each player in a meeting with the sports director, the coaches, the physical trainers and the rehabilitation workers, putting on the board the minutes that each one had to play. We wanted to give Rubén thirty, but he hasn’t been able to play; Pablo did do it until he got injured at the end. And for players like Benite, Hughes or Sasha, control them a lot. We had to stop Renfroe at half-time, Rubén is undergoing tests in the hospital, Pablo has a big sprain and Jonathan (Kasibabu) has suffered a severe blow to his back,” the Bilbao native summed up in the press conference. after the meeting.

Imminent stoppage

«The assessment is negative because We didn’t care about the result of this match. We all wanted to be there for what we have very demanding against the leader and we are going to arrive with few players. It’s what it takes. “This match was of no use, only for this, and in the end it was fulfilled,” the Verdiblanco coach assumed resignedly, appealing precisely to the lhey murphy: Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. This explains why an inconsequential but solvent victory like the one against Algeciras, which allowed Betis to finish the initial phase of the Spanish Cup undefeated, left bad feelings. The week is complicated for the team to prepare for Sunday’s clash. Fortunately, then there will be a break for the FIBA selection window and Betis will not play again until December 1, when they travel to Castellón. Perhaps in those couple of weeks there will be time for some players to recover even though the training sessions are few and of poor quality due to the circumstances that have arisen.

“I understand that tests are made, but with everyone I talk to, the experience is bad,” said García de Vitoria, alluding to the format of the Cup. “We came from a super demanding match in Madrid on Sunday and on Tuesday we played against a team from Second FEB that has no chance of qualifying. But on December 23 we play the first leg of the quarterfinals and on the 20th we do it in Orense. On January 7, another game, the return leg, and if we qualify, the Final Four in January. Between December and January we can play 14 to 15 important games because in this League, the first one is promoted directly but there is no prize, as far as I know, for the one who wins the Cup. It may be cool, but ask any of the classified teams what they think. I already tell you that you don’t like it because I have spoken to everyone. “People didn’t like the format, but we have to adapt so as not to be harmed,” explained the Betis coach at the conclusion of the cup clash, leaving a broad reflection on the tournament and what it can cause.

Betis is not having good luck with injuries, quite the opposite. After the match in Alicante (third day), Ruben Lopez He suffered a grade two sprain of the collateral ligament of a metacarpal in his right hand that did not allow him to play until this past Sunday. A week later, it fell Alex Suarez with direct trauma to the fifth metatarsal of the right foot. He played again against Estudiantes. The longer the injury Jelinekwho has already missed two games and will surely miss Sunday’s game due to a base fracture of the fifth metatarsal of his right foot. And before all of them, DeBisschop He also suffered a fracture in a metatarsal. Added to this list of mishaps are those of Pablo Marín and Rubén López, who, pending what the official medical report determines and what Renfroe and Kasibabu have, seem a priori to be the most important.

Wednesday the 20th, the draw

The final roadmap for the Spanish Cup, once the first phase is completed, will be determined on Wednesday, November 20, in the draw to be held at the FEB Museum in Alcobendas. Of the eight groups with 40 teams in total, the classified ones, all from Primera FEB, are the Monbús Obradoiro, Alimerka Oviedo, Real Valladolid, San Pablo Burgos, Movistar Estudiantes, Betis Baloncesto, Amics Castelló and Odilo Cartagena. It will be a pure draw and the order of the pairings will be determined according to the order in which the balls are drawn, with the team that comes out first in each pairing playing the second leg at home. The quarterfinals will be settled in a round-trip on January 23 and 7, while the semifinals, whose matches will also be determined in the draw, will be played in a single match in the Final Four on January 24 and 25, 2025.