Virtus Bologna saw off Olympiacos Piraeus 96-94 in the EuroLeague on Thursday night, a result that leaves the league table looking rather different than expected. The home side held firm when it mattered most, closing out a game that swung both ways until the final possessions.
And here's the thing about these two — they've been running into each other all season, and by then you'd know where the pressure sits. Bologna came in as the underdog on paper, sitting seventeenth with fourteen wins from thirty-eight, while Olympiacos led the standings with twenty-six victories. The visitors didn't feel the pressure, not really, and that might have been their mistake.
The statistics tell you what happened, even if they don't explain why. Bologna pulled down thirty-eight rebounds to Olympiacos's thirty, winning the battle on the boards with seventeen offensive boards against ten. The visitors were sharper from the field, hitting thirty-seven shots to thirty-five, but Bologna's twenty offensive rebounds kept them in it when they needed to.
Olympiacos still sit top of the table after thirty-eight games, but the gap doesn't feel as wide as it did before kick-off. Bologna remain seventeenth with twenty-four losses, yet they've shown they can compete with anyone when the conditions suit them. The away end never stopped, but it wasn't enough.
We'd backed Olympiacos at 71 per cent confidence, and the match went another way entirely. Bologna's thirty-eight defensive rebounds and twenty-four assists suggest a team that moved the ball when it counted, something that doesn't show up in a simple prediction model.
