Ludwigsburg. Americans who come to Germany for basketball generally rarely have to take language courses. This is mainly because English is mostly spoken in basketball outside of the NBA and US colleges on the European stage. There are other reasons why John Patrick, the coach of the Bundesliga basketball team MHP-Riesen Ludwigsburg, feels like a language teacher before the BBL Cup game on Sunday against s.Oliver Würzburg (3 p.m.). “Many things that are taken for granted for coaches or players are completely new for rookies or players from abroad,” says the 52-year-old. “It’s like Chinese for someone who doesn’t speak Chinese.”
With Barry Brown Jr. and Desi Rodriguez, Patrick has two import players from the USA in his – as usual – for the new season completely renewed squad with ten newcomers. Patrick is all the more happy about the three newest players in his team: Jordan Hulls (30 years old), Tremmell Darden (38) and Andrew Warren (33), who all have a lot of BBL experience. “In his first training session Tremmell Darden explained to Desi and Barry how the game works without the ball,” reports Patrick with relief: “It is important that we have three new players who understand that without my having to explain it.”
With his three new veterans in the squad, Patrick happily looks back on what he said was the best training week of the entire preparation: “We have improved a lot more in the last few days than in the first two or three weeks.” Hulls, Warren and Darden also consolidate one exciting mix in the squad of giants. Six players are already over 30 years old, seven players are under 24, five of them were even born in this millennium. “A good mix”, says Patrick, especially since his veteran players around Darden and Yorman Polas Bartolo (35) remind him of their athleticism of young bungs. “They dunk everything that is near the basket,” says Patrick happily.
And the young players – not only in terms of their impression, but also their actual age – make the experienced giant coach happy. “They are cheeky and have little fear.” The youngsters Lukas Herzog (19) and the coach’s sons Jacob (16) and Johannes Patrick (18) already had a foretaste of this at the final tournament of the last Bundesliga season in the Munich Audi Dome. At that time, the Ludwigsburg surprisingly won the runner-up championship, while the youngsters were rewarded with a lot of playing time.
Despite the recent success: John Patrick does not want to announce a new, possibly even similarly ambitious goal for the new season despite the runner-up championship in his back. “We’re not Alba or Bayern and we say: ‘Without a title it doesn’t make sense,’” says the coach before the first competitive game in 112 days. Against s.Oliver Würzburg, Ludwigsburg will start the BBL Cup on Sunday, which will be played in a new mode due to the corona.
A total of 16 teams compete in groups of four. The group winners move into the Final Four in the Munich Audi Dome. “I think that’s a good idea,” says Patrick happily about the mode in which the giants will initially be in Weißenfels on Sunday, and a week later against Ulm (Saturday, 8.30 p.m.) and Bamberg (Sunday, 8.30 p.m.) in Ulm Ratiopharm-Arena.
Patrick describes the first game with the three new players in the squad as “exciting and interesting”. At the same time, it is like the first test game with the new constellation, which now has to play in – especially since Patrick excludes the obligation of another player. “We are complete,” says the coach, even though a center with Yannick Wetzell recently left the team without a replacement being signed for under the basket. Instead, with Cristian Cotoara, you have a youth center in your own offspring, who, however, cannot train with the team again after a broken foot. Even the all-purpose weapon Darden can act with his physique under the basket.
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