Italy's time has arrived

VALENCIA (2016 Rio Olympics) - A men's international basketball event is be held in Italy this summer for the first time in a quarter of a century.

The Executive Committee of FIBA announced that one of the three six-team FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments (OQTs), which are to run from 4-10 July and the winners of which will advance to the Rio de Janeiro Games, is to be staged in Turin. The Philippines (Manila) and Serbia (Belgrade) will host the others.

For a basketball public that is starving to see its biggest Italy stars compete in person, players like Danilo Gallinari, Marco Belinelli, Andrea Bargnani, Gigi Datome and Alessandro Gentile? Now they've got their chance.

I'm not sure that he needed to, but national team captain Datome has issued a challenge to his compatriots to fill the area for their games. 

Not since the EuroBasket in 1991 in Rome has a major competition been held in Italy. Those great Italy players that made it to the Olympic Final in Athens 12 years ago? They never experienced the sort of moment that awaits the current Italy squad. When it runs onto the floor for its first OQT game, the arena will be so loud that ears will hurt.

The OQT is not just going to be about the Italians, of course, but for the other five teams that end up in Turin, too. But Italian basketball stands to be the big winner. To prevail in a glitzy OQT on home soil would serve as a spark for the sport in the country.

We already have a good idea about what the state of mind will be for the Italian players. National team coach Ettore Messina made the hairs on the backs of our necks stand up this week when he spoke about the OQT.

Messina is a coaching icon. He led Italy once before, to a runners-up finish at EuroBasket 1997 in Barcelona. He has steered proud clubs like Virtus Bologna and CSKA Moscow to European titles.

He took a break from his duties as a member of the San Antonio Spurs coaching staff this week to meet and greet Italian basketball people and fans in Rome. He also offered words of wisdom at an Italian Basketball Federation (FIP) press conference in which he said that while he could not guarantee the Azzurri would end up in Rio, he could promise something else.

At the maximum, I can be your Winston Churchill and promise you blood, sweat and tears. - Messina

At EuroBasket 2015, a lot of very good, focused teams showed up to make a run for Rio. Only Spain and Lithuania accomplished that mission by reaching the Final.

But there were others that showed plenty of class, grit and determination. One of those squads was the Italian one. It came within a made shot at the end of regulation of beating Lithuania in the Quarter-Finals.

Italy also defeated eventual champions Spain in the Group Phase in Berlin. So while Messina may want to temper expectations, the reality is that Italy have a great shot of making it to Brazil.

On Tuesday, at the House of Basketball - FIBA's headquarters - in Mies, Switzerland, Italy will discover their opponents at the OQT when the draw is held and only then will we be able to come up with an educated prediction.

What we do know already is that the week in Turin is going to be a basketball festival. It's a city of culture, great food and beauty. For the Italians, it's a perfect chance to see your players dazzle, just as they did much of last year.

The other certainty? The coach said it best.

We will try to compete to the maximum of our abilities, which are many and then, we hope to find ourselves in a competition as important as that in Rio. - Messina

Jeff Taylor

FIBA

FIBA's columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA.

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