Basketball
After winning more enemies in their last three outings, the Murcian team will face a rival tomorrow who is united by an almost brotherly relationship
The group of men led by Sito Alonso has the dirty team label hanging on them and it does not seem that it will be stripped away either easily, or in the short term. And it is something that accompanies UCAM in its recent history, since, in the first season of Fotis Katsikaris on the bench, 2015-16, Murcia led the personal fouls table in their first and only season of ‘playoff’ ‘ till the date. The players changed, the coaches changed, and until today, UCAM has been the club that has been the leader of this category of dubious honor the most times.
Doubtful because it generates a negative stigma on the team, but, in turn, it has hardened this team away from home as, until then, it had never done. The Murcian team long since left behind their fame as an elevator team and, later, they unseated that of the comparsa team in the Endesa League, because that UCAM of Fotis arrived with his physical game until the qualifying rounds for the title and, the next most successful in memory, that of Ibon Navarro, reached the ‘Final Four’ of the Champions League two years later.
The mother of the tanganas so far this season was against Breogán; in Andorra and Badalona there were very absurd din
This season, UCAM seems to find itself again with the opportunity to do something special. His best historical start has him at the gates of the Copa del Rey, and his showy game – he continues, one more week, being the highest scorer with an average of 86.4 per game – worth the redundancy, attracts glances. And, faced with the possibility of doing something that he had never done again, his excessively hard game is also talked about again.
From mess to mess
Thus, Sito Alonso’s team has three consecutive starts, earning feuds, just in case they had few. The mother of the tanganas so far this season in the third quarter of the clash against Breogán, chaotic end in the defeat ‘in extremis’ in Andorra and its most absurd noise the other day less than a minute to the conclusion in Badalona and with everything in his favor after having been in tow for the whole game.
It is to finish a game as a visitor and the reactions on social networks are unanimous. Even without having played, as when, the other day, the successful Puerto Rican singer Nicky Jam made a visit to the Palace and the most repeated comment was the same on the different networks: “another gang member.”
The good relationship between Murcia and Burgos began three years ago, when Benite and Lima left for San Pablo
Cold city where they exist, but warm in human terms for UCAM. Murcians and Burgos have been joined by a string of good gestures towards each other in recent years, a friendship that began when Benite and Lima, two of UCAM’s most emblematic foreigners in its history, joined the Burgos discipline in December of 2018, after having marched together from Murcia to Zagreb to join Cedevita in an experience that did not turn out to be what was promised.
Davis, Lima and Taylor try to stop Tomic last Sunday. /
The same happened to Sito Alonso, his coach in Croatia until a month before, when he was fired. The debts dragged by a club that right off the bat decided that there was no place for outsiders left the ex-university students with one hand in front and the other behind, who found Burgos the opportunity to return to the best domestic league in Europe. Especially in the case of Benite, on which UCAM retained the right of first refusal if they wanted to return to Spain, the Murcians decided not to be an obstacle for their rival for the sake of a player who had been their captain and needed to continue his sporting career.
Benite and Lima began together what became the most successful stage of the young Burgos, with a city overturned behind, and that happened almost in the blink of an eye from fighting for permanence to, the following season, being a semifinalist of the Endesa League. It was the season that was stopped short by Covid-19, and months later, he became champion of the Champions League – resumed then – with Lima already back in Murcia and Benite lifting the champion trophy where he was denied with the UCAM, the OAKA of Athens.
Chivalrous gesture
He would still have to win the Intercontinental and revalidate the Champions League title, when we attend the season with empty stands. In these, the Burgos dressing room was one of the first with which the coronavirus was cruel, and the lack of empathy of the Endesa League forced the Castilian team, fresh out of confinement and without training, to play a game with only seven chips from first template. Lost, then came the UCAM, who wanted to have the gesture of postponing the game and playing it on equal terms.
The Burgos club would issue an official statement in which it wanted to “thank UCAM Murcia, its president, and especially its general manager Alejandro Gómez, for understanding and collaboration.” And, when the day of the match arrived, he published a graphic design with the bust of Lima, with a laurel wreath on his head, which read “to César, what belongs to César”, specifying the dedication “to UCAM Murcia , for his respect for basketball.
The good relationship is maintained with a Burgos in which Benite is already a legend, as his player with the most matches, points and valuation credits in the Endesa League, his teammate on the perimeter these seasons, Thad McFadden, is now from Lima in Murcia . At its most unpopular, UCAM wants to end a match with a hug rather than a shove.
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