Agitated behind the scenes and slowed down by disappointing results, ASVEL shows up this weekend at Disneyland Paris to get out of the turbulent zone in which it finds itself, with the Leaders Cup (14-16 February) which did little to it successful in recent seasons. In the current atmosphere in Villeurbanne, this mid-season tournament which brings together in Marne-la-Vallée the eight best teams from the first phase of the French Basketball Championship, is timely to revive a dynamic, with potentially three matches in three days. And a coronation Sunday at the end of the afternoon would bring to the players of Zvezdan Mitrovic a reason for satisfaction, rare in recent weeks on the side of the Astroballe. In the Euroleague, the Rhone club has won only one of its last eight matches. And on a national level, the Villeurbannais have chained two consecutive losses, the latest to date in Chalon-sur-Saône Tuesday evening (99-96 ap).
Here is the official photo of the team at @DisneylandParis! End of the first day, serious things resume tomorrow # LDLCASVEL # JeepELITE # LeadersCup2020pic.twitter.com / ArimV710lf
- LDLC ASVEL (@LDLCASVEL) February 13, 2020In the end, the slim hopes of qualifying for the quarter-finals in the most beautiful European competition are gone, and Asvel no longer shares the lead of the Elite, Dijon and Monaco counting one more victory. “A basketball season is never linear. The most important in the league, it starts in April, May and June (the play-offs, note). We lacked a little juice and we were in a rush and a game that was not necessarily ours. We have a job to find these values, "said Asvel captain Charles Kahudi, who has been out of the office for a month due to an ankle injury.
These receding results were accompanied by the moods of Edwin Jackson, flagship rookie of the offseason, whose release in Le Progrès Sunday was noticed: the scorer regretted the weakness of the collective game villeurbannais and the insufficiency of his own playing time.
The club did not take long to react: the player, sidelined by his coach for the two days of Jeep Elite Sunday and Tuesday, was loaned Tuesday evening to Estudiantes Madrid, penultimate of the Championship of '' Spain, where he played during the 2016-17 season. "It's part of basketball. We are here to play. The rest, we do not manage. It's not easy, but we're here to do a job, ”said Kahudi.
Monaco undefeated at Mickey
In Marne-la-Vallée since 2013, Asvel has only rarely shone: a final in 2017 lost against Monaco, two half (2016 and 2018) and two quarters. She will be opposed this Friday (3.30 p.m.) in the quarter-finals in Strasbourg, holding the title also in the middle of a crisis after thanking her coach, Blues coach Vincent Collet. The SIG, still present in the Leaders Cup, has won only one of its last fifteen matches in all competitions, coming out of the top 8 after mid-season (10th). The difficult victory won against Limoges (105-100 AD) on Saturday was immediately offset by a new setback on Tuesday at Boulogne-Levallois (97-89).
The Métropolitans 92, the first to drop Asvel this season at the Astroballe on Sunday, also arrive in full confidence with five successes in six games (notably against Lyon-Villeurbanne and Monaco) in 2020. Fourth in the championship classification France, they will have to pass the Cholet obstacle (1:00 p.m.) before eventually finding the Villeurbannais in half.
In the other half of the table, the two co-leaders of Jeep Elite, Monaco and Dijon, face Friday evening respectively Nanterre (20:30) and Bourg-en-Bresse (18:00) before a possible half shock. The Monegasques are undefeated in Marne-la-Vallée: they won their first three Leaders Cup in 2016, 2017 and 2108, but had missed the tournament last year, penalized by a bad start to the 2018-19 season.
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- Jeep Elite Ranking
