AVIANO AIR BASE, Italy — For the second straight weekend, most of the basketball games scheduled in Italy have been called off, according to DODDS-Europe Athletic Director Karen Seadore.
Roads through the mountains near Florence on which the teams travel already have snow and more is predicted for the weekend, Seadore said Thursday.
But unlike last weekend’s postponements, caused by a nationwide truckers strike, this weekend’s games won’t be rescheduled. That means some teams will not play each other during the season, leaving the question of a true champion undecided.
“There’s nothing else we can do,” Seadore said.
Ken McNeely, who has been coaching at Aviano since 1974, said it’s the first time he can remember so many games being canceled in a two-week period.
“The only other time we’ve had games canceled like this was during war,” he said. “But that was just Aviano, and most of the other schools still played.”
In basketball, Aviano at Naples, Vicenza at Marymount International and American School of Milan at American Overseas School of Rome were canceled, Seadore said. And a wrestling match Saturday at Vicenza that was supposed to feature all the schools in Italy will now just have Aviano and Sigonella taking on the hosts.
Boys basketball is the most directly affected as far as a championship. Aviano and Naples are tied for first place at 7-1 and were set to play both Friday and Saturday. Two wins by either team would have likely meant an outright championship. But a split would have allowed AOSR (8-2) — which has split with each team this season — to move into a three-way tie. And it’s possible that Vicenza (6-2) could join them.
All four teams are Division II and are scheduled to play in the DODDS-Europe Championships in Wiesbaden, Germany, from Feb. 22-25.
“It’s definitely going to be a challenge with seeding if they haven’t all played each other,” Seadore said.
Naples wrestlers, expected to contend for a Division II title at the DODDS-Europe championships Feb. 17-18 in Wiesbaden, won’t have wrestled in the two weeks before the sectional qualifying tournament Feb. 11 at Aviano.
