By Cesare Milanti / info@eurohoops.net
Facundo Campazzo keeps on being essential for Chus Mateo’s Real Madrid in this unbeaten start of the season. The Argentinian veteran pushed his team to the 100-74 victory against Virtus Bologna with 18 points, 6 rebounds, 11 assists, and 3 steals with 9/9 at the charity stripe, being named EuroLeague MVP of Round 7.
After his amazing performance, the Argentinian playmaker remained humble and gave credit to his team. “The stats are for you guys. I don’t mind the stats right now. I am just happy that we won the game and keep having zero losses”, he said after delivering his career-high night in PIR with 39.
He also underlined what’s giving Real Madrid this boost at the beginning of the season. “Our mentality is to try to play hard defense, and I think we changed that in the second quarter. I think that playing good defense made us play good offense as well, so we have to keep this in mind: that defense is going to give us more victories than losses”, Facundo Campazzo added.
Since returning to Real Madrid this summer following his season in Serbia with Crvena Zvezda, the 32-year-old point guard has been almost averaging a double-double with 11.8 points and 8.7 assists per game, grabbing 3.5 rebounds with 1.2 steals as well. He has collected three double-doubles thus far.
The former Dallas Mavericks and Denver Nuggets playmaker is the second Real Madrid player to be named the MVP of the Round in this year’s EuroLeague, who received the award thanks to his 39 PIR performance – the same as Facundo Campazzo – against ALBA Berlin in the second round of the season.
Full list of 2023-24 EuroLeague Round MVPs
- Round 1: Alec Peters, Olympiacos vs Panathinaikos (31 PIR)
- Round 2: Guerschon Yabusele, Real Madrid vs Anadolu Efes (39 PIR)
- Round 3: Tornike Shengelia, Virtus Bologna vs ALBA Berlin (32 PIR)
- Round 4: Nikola Milutinov, Olympiacos vs Partizan Belgrade (30 PIR)
- Round 5: Mathias Lessort, Panathinaikos vs Baskonia (31 PIR)
- Round 6: Tornike Shengelia, Virtus Bologna vs Anadolu Efes (30 PIR)
- Round 7, Facundo Campazzo, Real Madrid vs Virtus Bologna (39 PIR)
One of the performances of the season so far✨@facucampazzo claimed the Round 7 MVP after guiding @RMBaloncesto to another home dub🏅
‘MVP of the Round’ I @PaniniAmerica pic.twitter.com/6Wmqy0ACcj
— Turkish Airlines EuroLeague (@EuroLeague) November 11, 2023
PHOTO CREDIT: Turkish Airlines EuroLeague