After losing their first game in EuroBasket 2025, Simone Fontecchio and Italy have bounced back with back-to-back wins to put themselves in a good position to make it past the group stage. On Sunday, Fontecchio led the way for Gli Azzurri, as he went off for a 39-point scoring outburst in a 96-79 win over Jusuf Nurkic and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
With that performance, Fontecchio now holds Italy's all-time record for most points in a EuroBasket game, per FIBA EuroBasket.
The record was previously held by former NBA draft first-overall pick Andrea Bargnani, who had 36 points back in 2011. Other Italian players who have put up at least 32 points in a EuroBasket contest are Antonello Riva in 1987 and 1989 and Danilo Gallinari in 2025.
Fontecchio was efficient against Bosnia and Herzegovina, as he shot 13-for-20 from the floor with seven makes on 10 attempts from behind the arc. He added eight rebounds, three assists and a steal in 37 minutes of action. Darius Thompson and Marco Spissu each contributed 14 points for Italy, who lost to Greece (75-66) in their tournament opener before taking down Georgia (78-62) and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nurkic led his side with 21 points to go along with 10 rebounds.
Fontecchio, who was traded in July from the Detroit Pistons to the Miami Heat, has clearly now moved on from his struggles in Italy's EuroBasket opener versus Greece, in which he scored just four points on a salty 1-for-11 shooting from the floor while finishing with a minus-11.
“I really wasn't worried about my performance,” Fontecchio shared following the win against Bosnia and Herzegovina (via FIBA's website). “Of course I wasn't happy but I knew it would come at some point so I wasn't really stressed about it. I was mad a little bit but it's part of the game, part of life. You cannot always score 40 points or 20 points every game. I am not a machine.”
The win over Nurkic and company improved Italy's record to 2-1 (five points), good for third in Group C. Only four teams from each division will move on to the knockout stages of EuroBasket 2025.
Italy will close out its group stage schedule with a showdown versus the winless Cyprus side.
