Davide Moretti (born March 25, 1998) is an Italian professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player for

Pallacanestro Varese Pallacanestro Varese, also called by its current sponsor's name, the Openjobmetis Varese, is an Italian professional basketball club based in Varese, Lombardy. Founded in 1945, the team plays in the Italian basketball league system, Italian first ...

of the

Lega Basket Serie A The Lega Basket Serie A (LBA) is a professional men's club basketball league that has been organised in Italy since 1920. Serie A is organised by Lega Basket, which is regulated by the Italian Basketball Federation (FIP). It is the highest-tier le ...

(LBA). He played

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

for the

Texas Tech Red Raiders The Texas Tech Red Raiders and Lady Raiders are the athletic teams that represent Texas Tech University, located in Lubbock, Texas. The women's basketball team uses the name Lady Raiders, while the school's other women's teams use the "Red Raide ...

Early life and career

In addition to basketball, Moretti grew up in

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

, Italy playing

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

, and

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

. In the 2013–14 season, he played for prominent Italian amateur club

Stella Azzurra Associazione Sportiva Stella Azzura ( en, Blue Star) is an Italian amateur basketball club based in Rome. It plays in the third division Serie B as of the 2015–16 season. The club is mainly known for its excellent youth teams, which participate ...

. In 2013, Moretti joined Stella Azzurra at the Città di Roma regional tournament for the

Euroleague Basketball Next Generation Tournament The Euroleague Basketball Next Generation Tournament is an international boy's youth age basketball tournament that is contested between the best basketball clubs in Europe in the Under-18 age category. The tournament is organized by Euroleague Ba ...

. On July 9, 2014, he signed with

(LBA) club

Pistoia Basket 2000 A.S. Pistoia Basket 2000, known for sponsorship reasons as OriOra Pistoia, is an Italian professional basketball team based in Pistoia, Tuscany. History The city of Pistoia was formerly represented in the first division LBA by Olimpia Basket Pist ...

, where his father

Paolo Moretti Paolo Moretti (born 30 June 1970 in Arezzo) is a former professional basketball player, and current basketball coach from Italy, who won the silver medal with his national team at the Eurobasket 1997 in Spain. Standing at a height of 2,00 m ...

was head coach. Through 12 games, Moretti averaged 1.3 points in 6.9 minutes per game. For the next two seasons, he joined

Universo Treviso Basket Universo Treviso Basket (diminutive TvB), known for sponsorship reasons as NutriBullet Treviso, is an Italian professional basketball club based in Treviso, Veneto. Founded in 2012, it plays in the Italian basketball first division Lega Basket Se ...

of the

Serie A2 Basket Serie A2, known for sponsorship reasons as Serie A2 Old Wild West, is a men's basketball league in Italy. It constitutes the second-tier of the Italian league pyramid, below the first division LBA and above the third division Serie B, with pro ...

. In the 2016–17 season, Moretti was named the best under-22 player in the Serie A2 after averaging 12.6 points, 2.3 assists, and 0.9 steals per game.

College career

Moretti took his father's advice to improve as a basketball player through college basketball. On June 12, 2017, he signed an Athletic Scholarship Agreement to play for

Texas Tech Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sys ...

in the

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...

. Moretti was drawn to the program in part because head coach

Chris Beard Christopher Michael Beard (born February 18, 1973) is an American basketball coach who was most recently the head coach at the University of Texas at Austin for the men's team. He previously coached at Texas Tech, Little Rock, Angelo State, and ...

had experience coaching the Swiss national team and was familiar with European styles of play. He chose Texas Tech over

UConn The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Ha ...

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

, and

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

. Moretti mainly came off the bench in his freshman season, averaging 3.5 points, 1.1 assists and 0.8 rebounds per game. He was named to the 2018 All-

Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...

Academic Rookie Team. Moretti became a regular starter as a sophomore. On January 26, 2019, he scored a career-high 21 points in a 67–64 win over

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

. By the end of the regular season, he was shooting 92.2 percent on

free throw In basketball, free throws or foul shots are unopposed attempts to score points by shooting from behind the free-throw line (informally known as the foul line or the charity stripe), a line situated at the end of the Key (basketball), restricted ...

s, which ranked second in the NCAA Division I. Moretti won the

Elite 90 Award The Elite 90 Award or more formally The Elite 90 Academic Recognition Award Program, originally the Elite 88 Award and later the Elite 89 Award, is an award by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) recognizing the student athlete wi ...

for academic excellence and earned third-team All-Big 12 recognition. He averaged 11.5 points, 2.4 assists, and 1.1 steals per game. Coming into his junior season, Moretti was named to the Bob Cousy Award Watch List. He was named Honorable Mention All-Big 12. As a junior, Moretti averaged 13 points, 2.3 assists, 1.7 rebounds and 1.2 steals per game and started all 31 games. On May 23, 2020, he decided to forego his senior season at Texas Tech to pursue a professional career in Europe, signing with

agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...

Miško Raznatović of BeoBasket.

Professional career

On May 26, 2020, Moretti signed a multi-year contract with

Olimpia Milano Pallacanestro Olimpia Milano, commonly known as Olimpia Milano or as EA7 Emporio Armani Milan after its title sponsor, is an LBA Italian professional basketball team, based in Milan, Italy. Its colors are white and red, and the team is sometimes ...

of the

and the EuroLeague. In the season 2021–22, he plays on a loan contract for V.L. Pesaro. On July 4, 2023, he signed with

of the

(LBA).

National team career

Moretti has often represented Italy in

FIBA The International Basketball Federation (FIBA ; French: ) is an association of national organizations which governs the sport of basketball worldwide. Originally known as the (hence FIBA), in 1989 it dropped the word ''amateur'' from its na ...

junior tournaments. He averaged 10.4 points per game at the

2014 FIBA Under-17 World Championship The 2014 FIBA Under-17 World Championship (Arabic: بطولة العالم لكرة السلة 2014 تحت 17 سنة ) was the 3rd edition of the FIBA Under-17 World Championship, the biennial international men's youth basketball championship cont ...

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

, leading the Italian national under-17 team to ninth place. Moretti guided the Italian under-19 team to a bronze medal at the

2016 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship The 2016 FIBA U18 European Championship was the 33rd edition of the FIBA U18 European Championship. The competition was originally scheduled to take place in Samsun, Turkey, from 30 July to 7 August 2016, but was postponed indefinitely due to the ...

Samsun Samsun, historically known as Sampsounta ( gr, Σαμψούντα) and Amisos (Ancient Greek: Αμισός), is a List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, city on the north coast of Turkey and is a major Black Sea port. In 2021, Samsun reco ...

, after averaging 14.8 points and five assists per game.

Career statistics

College

, - , style="text-align:left;", 2017–18 , style="text-align:left;",

, 37 , , 1 , , 12.3 , , .336 , , .317 , , .857 , , .8 , , 1.1 , , .4 , , .0 , , 3.5 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2018–19 , style="text-align:left;",

, 38 , , 38 , , 31.6 , , .498 , , .459 , , style="background:#cfecec;", .924* , , 2.1 , , 2.4 , , 1.1 , , .0 , , 11.5 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2019–20 , style="text-align:left;",

, 31 , , 31 , , 34.1 , , .419 , , .383 , , .902 , , 1.7 , , 2.3 , , 1.2 , , .0 , , 13.0 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 106 , , 70 , , 25.6 , , .436 , , .399 , , .906 , , 1.5 , , 1.9 , , .9 , , .0 , , 9.1

Personal life

Moretti is the son of

, who had a 15-year professional career in Europe and won a silver medal with the

Italian national team The Italy national football team ( it, Nazionale di calcio dell'Italia) has represented Italy in international football since its first match in 1910. The national team is controlled by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), the governing bo ...

EuroBasket 1997 The 1997 FIBA European Championship, commonly called FIBA EuroBasket 1997, was the 30th FIBA EuroBasket regional basketball championship held by FIBA Europe, which also served as Europe qualifier for the 1998 FIBA World Championship, giving a be ...

. After retiring from playing during Davide's childhood, Paolo began coaching professionally and won the LBA Coach of the Year award with Pistoia in 2014. Moretti has a younger brother Niccolò, who plays basketball in Italy at the junior level.

Footnotes

References

External links

Texas Tech Red Raiders bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moretti, Davide 1998 births Living people Italian expatriate basketball people in the United States Italian men's basketball players Lega Basket Serie A players Olimpia Milano players Pistoia Basket 2000 players Point guards Sportspeople from Bologna Texas Tech Red Raiders basketball players Universo Treviso Basket players Victoria Libertas Pallacanestro players