By Nikos Varlas/ varlas@eurohoops.net
The Turkish Airlines EuroLeague continues to provide us with big thrills and Round 11 will be no exceptions as Real Madrid (7-3) are hosting the very combative and competitive Zalgiris Kaunas (4-6). In this meeting Pablo Laso will be facing the EuroLeague playing legend Sarunas Jasikevicius on the opposite bench!
The element that binds the two men more than any other? They had big careers as points guards and now they carry on in the world of basketball EuroLeague head coaches! Laso, born in 1967, is in his sixth season in the competition. With an overall record of 101 wins and 42 defeats in his course on the Madrid bench, where he won the EuroLeague in 2015, along with the Coach of the Year award, the Alexander Gomelskiy Trophy.
He’s been Madrid’s coach since 2011 and in Spain he has won three domestic championships (2013, 2015, 2016) and four Copa del Rey titles (2012, 2014, 2015, 2016). A classic representative of the Spanish school, he likes a fast game, pressure on the ball, and allowing his players to take initiatives and have freedom.
Jasikevicius, born in 1976, is the only player in the history of the EuroLeague to have won four titles with three different teams. This is in his second season as head coach of Zalgiris and the samples of his work are more than positive! Coincidentally, he made his debut as Zalgiris’s coach in a game against Madrid in the Spanish capital on 15 January 2016!
That night, the Madrileños won 92-86. The game marked Saras’s debut as head coach, as he succeeded Gintaras Krapikas, whose assistant he had been since January 2014. A week later, in his first EuroLeague game before the home fans in Kaunas, Zalgiris defeated Olympiacos Piraeus by 20 points, which is still the EuroLeague biggest margin of victory for the team under Jasikevicius. When Madrid visiting Kaunas a few weeks later, however, Laso’s men won by 15.
Overall, Jasikevicius has a record of 6 wins and 16 defeats on Zalgiris’s bench. In this year’s EuroLeague he has managed to celebrate 4 wins in 10 games, and if we consider the difficulty of the league and the limitations of the Kaunas club, we can only interpret it as a success and a clear indication of the Lithuanian’s coaching potential!
Laso and Jasikevicius have an appointment on Thursday night in the Barclaycard Center. Madrid are the big favorites, but Zalgiris has won the same three of the last four games as the hosts, and has already proven that whoever underestimates it could pay dearly!