Luis Scola he met with journalists in the afternoon to take stock of the situation after the rescue. A result not to be celebrated, says the Argentine: «I believe that the initial responsibility for the results did not lie with him and for this reason we made some changes to the team without touching his position. Then, after the changes, the team did quite well with 9 wins and 9 defeats in a year in which they went to the playoffs with less than 50% of games won. And it stopped having those collapses, with the exception of Reggio, to which it had previously been subjected: indeed, sometimes the clear gap was in our favour”, began Scola, as reported by VareseNews. «In the second part of the season the team reached a good level of play but we are not happy with the final result in the championship. We certainly don’t celebrate salvation: we have much higher objectives and the 12 victories obtained compared to 17 last year are few, our will is to always improve. Having said that, we accept the result but, precisely, we don’t celebrate it. Another not positive thing is that we had to make changes throughout the season: the additions went well but philosophically we would like to avoid changing the team during the year. Having said that, I think that 14th place in this championship is better than that of 2022 when we remained below the safety zone for a long time. We finished level with 11th, practically closer to the playoffs than to relegation.”
We also talk about market: it ended with Tom Bialaszewskinow Varese is ready to focus on Herman Mandolasassistant to the American and before that to Matt Brase: «We made our proposal to Herman and he is happy to be our first choice: at the moment we have not yet reached an agreement because we are talking about some details but we would like to go in this direction. And the same goes for Marco Legovich who we would like to confirm.”
Then there is another question, the one that concerns Nico Mannion. «Nico changed the team on the pitch but the most important thing is that a similar player – for me the best in the championship overall – considered the possibility of coming here and then chose to play in Varese. Something that was unthinkable until two or three years ago: today, however, it is easier for us than in the past to think about these operations, we have access to another level of players even if it will not always be possible to sign them. And then it is essential that Nico is happy to play here: it doesn’t mean that he will stay for sure but this helps us a lot in the transfer phase. Until two years ago, players came to Varese on annual contracts, now everyone accepts longer deals and even if we were to lose them due to exit clauses, they would bring money to the club to reinvest on the market. Having said that, we would like to keep Mannion: the deadline for the Euroleague is closer than that for the NBA but if they are not respected he will remain a Varese Basketball player».
