Successful weekend for BBC COBURG

BBC COBURG enjoyed back-to-back wins this past weekend: On Saturday evening, they beat hapa Ansbach Piranhas 84:76 and improved to 4-1 in 1. Regionalliga play. On Sunday, they advanced to the next round of the Bavarian cup by trumping ATS Kulmbach 84:54.

Against 6^th-ranked Ansbach, great ball movement and crisp interior passing helped BBC to an early 12:0 lead. When forward Jordan Burris exploded to the rim and threw down an emphatic tomahawk jam, the HUK-COBURG arena crowd of approximately 1,000 seemed to be in for another blowout win.

Then, however, the guests switched to their infamous zone defense and BBC’s offense began to sputter. The hosts failed to consistently attack the gaps of the 2-3 zone and shot an abysmal 23 per cent from the perimeter in the first half. Slowly, Ansbach managed to crawl back into the game (43:36, 20.).

The third quarter saw more of the same: A somewhat stagnant BBC offense desperately tried to punish the Piranhas from beyond the arc while the guests never truly managed to threaten the Coburg lead.

Finally, at the beginning of the fourth quarter, the home team came to life and sealed the victory: Burris (19 points, nine rebounds, five assists) and Croatian guard Sasa Gligorovic (12 pts) made consecutive threes and Vlade-Divac-esque passing center Daniel Stawowski (five assists) repeatedly found cutters Steffen Walde (18 pts, 5 ass) and Fabian Franke (19 pts, 10 reb) on high-low post plays.

“It might not have been spectacular, but we were in control all night”, said Matt Haufer, BBC COBURG’s sports director, after the final whistle. Headcoach Simon Bertram added: “We still tend to play in spurts instead of maintaining a high intensity level throughout the game. We also gave up too many offensive rebounds to an undersized team. On the other hand, we managed to limit the efficiency of their key players and we forced them to take a lot of tough shots, as evidenced by their 39 per cent field goal percentage.”

BBC are on a three-game winning streak and improve to 4-1 on the season.

Statistics: Eurobasket

On Sunday, BBC beat Bezirksoberliga leaders ATS Kulmbach 84:54 to advance to the next round of the Bavarian cup. It took the heavy favorites until the fourth quarter to pull away from a scrappy and physical ATS squad. Steffen Walde (23 points) and Jordan Burris (19 pts) led the way despite playing limited minutes. Team captain Andreas Albus added 12 while Michael Herold contributed nine points.