Pieve di Soligo put on a clinic against Nitry Blue Wings in the Extraliga on 17 October, running away with a 122-79 victory that exposed every weakness in the visitors' game. The hosts shot 65 per cent from the field and connected on 13 three-pointers, while the visitors managed just 25 field goals and seven from distance. And here's the thing—this wasn't a surprise result. We tipped Pieve di Soligo at 67 per cent confidence before kickoff, and they delivered exactly what we expected.
By then, the visitors had already shown they could lose close games, but this was something different entirely. The shooting efficiency gap told its own story: 40 successful shots from 65 attempts against 25 from 63. The visitors turned the ball over 17 times compared to just 10 for the hosts, and the assist differential told a similar story—23 assists against 15.
Pieve di Soligo's defensive rebounds of 23 versus the visitors' 12 meant they controlled the glass, and their 12 steals compared to just 5 for the visitors showed they were disrupting the visitors' rhythm at every opportunity. The visitors' offensive rebounding of 16 against the hosts' 9 meant they got second chances, but they couldn't convert them into points. The hosts' 23 personal fouls versus 24 for the visitors was nearly even, so that wasn't what decided the game.
What decided it was the shooting efficiency and the ability to move the ball without turning it over. The visitors' free-throw percentage of 69 per cent compared to the hosts' 83 per cent was another slice of bad luck, but it was a symptom rather than a cause. To be fair, the visitors had won two of their three games before this, so they weren't without quality—but they were left flat-footed tonight.
Looking at where this leaves both teams in the standings, Pieve di Soligo are still unbeaten in three games and sitting second, while the visitors have dropped to fifth place after their first loss of the season. The gap between them has widened considerably now. The hosts' next fixture will test whether this performance was a statement or just a mismatch on paper.
