Amar Alibegovic (Trapani Shark) won the award for best player of the eleventh round of the championship, beating Christian Vital (Bertram Derthona Tortona) and Jaron Johnson (Openjobmetis Varese) in the voting. The public and the players on the pitch were one and the same for the entire forty minutes: in the stands they shouted and sang, on the parquet they ran and scored; the Trapani Shark took away Dolomiti Energia Trentino’s ten-game unbeaten run in the championship, but it cannot be said that the Sicilians achieved a feat, because the team coached by coach Jasmin Repesa – in these eleven days – has proved to be a big one. The 9-2 record and second place in the rankings no longer certify the ambition of the Granata club, but rather the quality of a project built piece by piece and which has become a reference; the victory against the league leaders is yet another brick in a practically perfect first round, where every element managed to become protagonists week after week. The cover man in this case was an impeccable Amar Alibegovic, who with the ‘sharks’ obtained promotion to the LBA after the playoff run in Serie A2; his numbers against Trento tell us 30 points with 9/13 two-pointers and 4/5 three-pointers, accompanied by 6 rebounds, 3 fouls suffered, 2 steals, 1 assist for a total of 34 under evaluation.
Interviewed by Piero Guerrini, Alibegovic recalled last year in which he chose to sign in A2 with Shark: “I believe that first of all it was my bet, I was playing in a high-level championship: taking a step back, it wasn’t the first option, but I saw it as an investment in perspective, considering what Trapani was building. The step back is now helping me take three steps forward. This year? the team had been assembled very good. Excellent players, but everyone in Serie A has talent, it makes a lot of difference to have good people. And certainly having a great coach like Repesa, with many years of experience, was fundamental. season, found how to make each individual perform at their best”.
Alibegovic also greatly appreciates the fact that Shark has become a sort of bastion of Southern Italy: “A beautiful thing. I see that fans come to our matches from all over Sicily. The south follows us and it is an honor for us to represent these people. I’m very happy to have such enthusiastic fans.”
Personally, it is already a time of first assessments for Alibegovic: “I started off strong, I had a decline, but going to the national team helped me a lot from a mental point of view. I found my game again. I’m growing, I know I can do more more and better”.
For the class of 1995, the 30 points and 34 rating recorded over the weekend represent their career high, touching up the previous ones of 25 points and 26 rating recorded against Vanoli Cremona when they wore the Virtus Segafredo Bologna uniform. Eighth match of the season ended in double figures – the third in a row – which therefore shows not only his skills under the boards, but also his scoring skills: in fact, his averages speak of 13.5 points and 6.8 rebounds – in addition to the 15.9 rating – in 24.3 minutes. Further support regarding his importance in the quintet comes from the percentages from the field where he shoots 44% from two, with an excellent 51.5% from three and with a Martian 92% with the clock stopped; the icing on the cake is the 3.0 fouls suffered and 1.9 assists per game, placing Amar Alibegovic in every area of the pitch. In the six games played against Dolomiti Energia Trentino (4 with Virtus Segafredo Bologna, 1 with Virtus Roma and Trapani Shark), the Corvallis native scored 10.5 points and grabbed 4.8 rebounds with a 13.1 rating.
