Euroleague 2007-2008 - Brose Baskets Bamberg - The Preview

October 21, 2007

Brose Baskets BambergAuthor : Sven Simon from Five Magazin

Overall Record Prediction : 5-9

Looking for surprises!

Bamberg is the underdog in a group with Panathinaikos, Barça and Real … but that doesn’t mean that the players don’t dream about the top 16!

Bamberg right now is the team to beat in Germany. Alba Berlin won his last championship in 2003, but Bamberg reached the finals four times and won two championships during the last five seasons. The expectations for the Euroleague (especially in this tough group) are not that high, but the club got some arguments for surprises. Two years ago they played the games in the Euroleague in Nürnberg, because the arena in Bamberg was to small. Now their homecourt (Jako Arena) got a new face and more seats (6900) - this time the opponents will understand why they call Bamberg “freakcity”. The support from the stands is really great – by far the loudest arena in the Bundesliga.

Let’s talk about the team! Bamberg got five German national players on the roster (Steffen Hamann, Demond Greene, Robert Garrett, Ademola Okulaja and Tim Ohlbrecht) and theGerman national coach Dirk Bauermann on the sideline. Bauermann got two quality players at every position. Starter at point guard is Hamann, who is also the starting pg of the national team. He’s not a shooter, but he knows the system of Bauermann and is a gifted one-on-one-defender. As a back-up Bamberg got Mark Dickel from New Zealand, a hard-nosed fighter, who got a lot of experience in European basketball. With Greene they got the starting shooting guard from the national team for position two and with Garrett a national player as a backup, too. Former Tar Heel Okulaja and Predrag Suput (first contract outside of Serbia, no English, but he played great in the first couple of bundesliga games) starting at the forward-spots and they got Darren Fenn, Chris Ensminger, Luke Schenscher and Ohlbrecht for the dirty work under the basket. Fenn is the starter at center, but take a good look at 19 year old Ohlbrecht, who dunks on every possible play.

There are seven players from last year’s roster and five of the guys know each other from the national team – that explains the good start for Bamberg in the Bundesliga (6-0). The team was clicking from the beginning on and is playing a little bit more fast break than the last years. Expect a lot of tough defense and on offense mainly patient set play. Bamberg will fight behind the big three against Rome, Istanbul, Belgrad and Roanne to finish on the first five spots in group C and reach the Top 16 for the second time in club history.

Final 4 Predictions : Panathinaikos Athens, Cska Moscow, f.c. Barcelona and Real Madrid

Winner: Panathinaikos Athens (if coach Obradovic can somehow keep all his guards satisfied: Diamantidis, Jasikevicius, Spanoulis, Vujanic, Becirovic, Hatzivrettas)



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Published by Julien · Filed Under Euroleague, Germany 

Comments

4 Responses to “Euroleague 2007-2008 - Brose Baskets Bamberg - The Preview”

  1. heinnews on October 22nd, 2007 6:45 am

    svenman!
    you’re killing me. bamberg are 5-0 with the win last night in Bonn (telekom hit 1-of-23 from long range).
    all kidding aside…
    bamberg are by far the team to beat in deutschland and i see no reason why bauermann doesnt make history again.
    too bad the guy doesnt have any more top-notch talent for the national team other than nowitzki (don’t come at me that ade is still top notch. sure a solid contributor, no doubt. but not top notch - not putting down okulaja).
    heinnews in the house with sven!!!!!

  2. sven simon on October 22nd, 2007 11:36 am

    hey dave,
    bamberg had three wins, when i was writing the preview … and in germany you get two points for a win - 6:0. now they are 10:0 (five wins) ;-)

  3. » Euroleague saison 07/08: Brose Baskets Bamberg | HoopNation - Der Basketball Blog on October 23rd, 2007 1:24 pm

    [...] dem englischen Blog BallinEurope hat Sven Simon von der FIVE schon mal seine Meinung zu dem Abschneiden und der Staerke der Brose [...]

  4. Schmiddi on October 23rd, 2007 3:11 pm

    Hey Sven.
    I like your prediction.
    Very realistic.
    And the fact that Bamberg has got five German national players on their team makes it very interesting for oppnents to. Because these guys have really formed a bond when playing on the national team and the bond should still exist when playing in Bamberg.
    Looking forward to hearing more from you

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