Davide Ancilotto
Davide Ancilotto (Venice, 3 January 1974 – Rome, 24 August 1997) was an Italian professional basketball player. Career. Beginnings. Ancilotto began playing association football at a very young age in Mestre. He began to play basketball, first experimenting with various roles, and then becoming a shooting guard, despite being tall, remarkable for a guard in Europe, becoming one of the most important players in this role on the continent. His height made him an atypical player for his role, not aesthetically beautiful, but concrete. Serie A and national team career. Ancilotto played 178 games in Lega Basket Serie A : the first four seasons in Caserta (1991-1995, three in A1 and the last in A2), then at Madigan Olimpia Basket Pistoia (1995-96), and with his last team, Virtus Roma, with which he collected 28 appearances, in the 1996-97 season. In 1996 he was about to be sold to the Spanish team Badalona but chose to stay in Italy and play for the team of the capital. In his Serie A career he scored 1890 points. He made his debut for the Italian national team on 12 November 1995 against Finland, in Helsinki, playing in 18 games and  scoring 102 points. Death. On 16 August 1997, during a friendly summer match in Gubbio in a quadrangular pre-season tournament, Ancilotto suddenly fell to the ground, a victim of brain ischemia. He died at the San Filippo Neri Hospital in Rome on the night of 24-25 August after eight days in a coma. At his funeral, the entire world of Italian basketball gathered in the church of San Lorenzo, Duomo di Mestre. Davide Ancilotto was interred in the cemetery of Favaro in Mestre. Posthumous honors. Several Italian cities have honored Davide Ancilotto's memory: