This season, UCAM has shown ample demonstrations of being very serious, and without any inferiority complex, as far as the basketball court wants to take them. The 16 victories it has right now, with nine games left to finish the regular league, are the same ones it achieved in the last two seasons, only one less than half the number of games it has in a season and two less than its absolute record. the 18th of the 2015-16 season.
All the rivals that have passed in the Champions League have fallen through the Palace and only two have escaped with victory in the Endesa League: Valencia, today's rival and who won in extra time a match in which they came back 24 points behind. disadvantage and Birgander and Hakanson were injured (the first of the two times), and Unicaja, second classified and the only team that follows in the footsteps of the leader, a Real Madrid that, like Barça or Baskonia, fell at the Palace and suffered great in the quarterfinals of the Copa del Rey against the university students.
Of the Spanish teams that play in the Euroleague, Valencia is the only one left to defeat Sito Alonso's team. And the San Luis Fountain is not a pavilion that is particularly bad at. UCAM has won four of its last seven meetings with Turia, the last two consecutively. The third in a row in Valencia would mean six consecutive wins in the Endesa League, something never seen before in Murcia.
But, in addition, winning today has a high strategic value for UCAM. Valencia is seventh, three places below, but with only one less victory, and winning two would not only make the Murcians' numbers grow for a 'playoff' that is getting closer every day, it would also give them full license to dream for the home court factor, one that the first four obtain and that, if the league ended today, the Murcians would enjoy to the detriment of a direct rival.
When last year UCAM won in Valencia they did so by the minimum (74-75), with a triple by Thad McFadden with 8 seconds left in the arms of Jonah Radebaugh, last to arrive but essential in the current team Murcian. Today, the American returns and faces for the first time since he left Valencia, which he paid for his transfer to a Tenerife team with which he never played and then only served one of the two years agreed upon by the contract. . It was not Radebaugh's best season; in three Endesa League games with UCAM he averaged 11 points, a figure that, in 36 games with Valencia, he only surpassed on three occasions.
Ludde Hakanson will also return to play in the Endesa League after his injury, who reappeared this past Wednesday in the Champions League with clear symptoms of rust, and who today will have a new opportunity, especially with the possible loss of Sant-Roos, who continues to be sore. his left knee.
Those who are confirmed casualties for the Valencian side are interior players Brandon Davies and Boubacar Touré. In addition, Álex Mumbrú will have to get rid of one of his three non-EU players to comply with the regulations in the call, having to choose between Jared Harper, Justin Anderson or Nate Reuvers.
#UCAM #splash
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