Valencia Basket finish preseason at the EncestaRías acb tournament

Valencia Basket men’s team will close its preseason in the 10th edition of the EncestaRías ACB tournament, where they will play two friendly games in two days at the Pontevedra Municipal Arena. The “taronja” team will open the competition against Baskonia on Friday, September 19, at 6:45 p.m. Valencia Basket will play again the following day against the team that records the same result in the other semifinal, which pits Río Breogán against Real Madrid. If they beat the team from Vitoria, they will play the final on Saturday, September 20, at 8:30 p.m. against the winner of the other semifinal. If they lose on Friday, they will play the consolation final against the loser of the second semifinal on Saturday, September 20, at 6:00 p.m. All tournament games will be streamed live on the competition’s official YouTube channel, and tickets can be purchased through this link.

Injuries piling up in the backcourt

Valencia Basket heads into this stage of the preseason with numerous injury-related absences. In their last friendly game in Teruel, they lost Xabi López-Arostegui, who required surgery on a finger on his left hand, and Brancou Badio, with a muscle injury in his right thigh. In addition, Jean Montero also had to undergo surgery on a finger on his right hand, and all three players will be sidelined for the coming weeks. This tournament may mark the first minutes for point guard Darius Thompson as a “taronja” player. To cover the backcourt absences, Ike Iroegbu has joined the team on a one-month contract and could also make his debut in this tournament. Nate Reuvers, who has rejoined team training after ankle problems, may also see his first preseason minutes.

Preseason finale

The “taronja” team faces its final two preseason games in Pontevedra before officially kicking off the season with the Supercopa Endesa semifinal against Unicaja on Saturday, September 27, at 6:00 p.m. In their previous two games, they lost to UCAM Murcia in Yecla (92–85) and defeated Casademont Zaragoza in Teruel (80–98) on Wednesday, the 10th.

The rival: Baskonia

Wednesday’s game will be just the third preseason friendly for the Vitoria side. They first played a closed-door game against Gipuzkoa Basket and most recently lost to San Pablo Burgos (90–88) in a game where several key players were missing. However, some of their new signings, such as Mamadi Diakite, Rafael Villar, Hamidou Diallo, and Clement Frisch did feature. However, it was two returning players, Samanic (25 points) and Forrest (18), who stood out the most. For this tournament, Baskonia could already count on players returning from EuroBasket, such as Sedekerskis and Luwawu-Cabarrot, as well as another of their new signings, Matteo Spagnolo. Markus Howard missed the Burgos game with muscle problems, and another new signing, Latvian forward Rodions Kurucs, has yet to make his preseason debut.

Rosters