WThe head coach of the Fraport Skyliners expresses how much pressure Diego Ocampo is under: At the moment, the most important thing is to win with his team, emphasizes the 46-year-old Spaniard, whose strength lies in promoting talent. But now the fight against relegation from the basketball league is about sporting survival and about his job, Ocampo knows that. Because since the beginning of January, Frankfurt have only won one of six league games, that on January 2nd in Giessen.
This negative run only leaves them in 15th place in the table, tied on points with the penultimate Oldenburg (10:34), who played two games more. The tail light Giessen 46ers is at 8:32 points; Currently, the Mittelhessen and the Lower Saxony would be the two relegated to the Pro A division of the second division.
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When the Frankfurters receive the seventh in Göttingen this Wednesday (7 p.m.) in the ball sports hall, they will have a break of around three weeks behind them. It would have been a good time for a change of coach, but Ocampo has one last chance. After the Göttingen game, the Skyliners have to compete with fourteenth Weißenfels (14:28) on Sunday before they fight for league membership at home against third-bottom Würzburg (10:34) on Wednesday.
With every defeat, the coach’s employment relationship with the Hessians became more at risk. “We all have to deliver as a whole club. We all have a duty. Now it counts – absolutely,” said managing director Yannick Binas on Monday. However, those responsible would “not deal with what-if scenarios”. “We expect to win games in the near future and set ourselves apart from the other clubs.” Binas’ message to the coach and team could hardly have been clearer. You are under pressure.
Ocampo never made excuses
Instead of parting ways with Ocampo in mid-February, the Skyliners preferred to build bridges for their head coach. They recognize his commitment and great will to change things for the better. When assessing his work, they also take into account the bad luck with injuries and the many corona cases in the team this season. There was hardly any continuity in personnel. Despite this, Ocampo never looked for excuses and always kept his calm on the outside.
Many talks took place during the six-day training camp in Mallorca, which the Frankfurt team held last week. It was about supporting each other mentally, creating a new sense of togetherness off the beaten track and setting new goals. Which ones, the Skyliners didn’t want to reveal in detail. However, it’s no secret that the team is looking to start a winning streak with Ocampo. That is also necessary.
Did the Skyliners train too hard?
There have also been changes in the training work, more precisely in the training control. The bottom line is that less should be more. Ocampo was said to sometimes train too hard. That could be a reason why the team ran out of strength in some games and they didn’t have anything to counter the opponents in the end. Ocampo is “definitely a training expert who likes to train a lot. These were certainly volumes that were very demanding. We discussed it with him, he is aware of it,” says Binas.
Ocampo has adapted to the new requirements. According to the managing director, the current “seasonal phase” is about “a lot of regeneration, short-term success and conscious energy control”. It is “important to recognize this, to tackle it and to adapt. The goal is of course that we see a development – the training is part of it,” says Binas.
In the remaining 14 league games, the Skyliners have plenty of opportunities to improve. Not only do they record the fewest points in the game, they also complain about the most ball losses and have the second-worst three-point ratio. When it comes to assists, they are only third from last in the ranking. There is a need for action everywhere in order to be able to bring about the turnaround. The training camp was “the signal” that “the long sprint to the end of the lap is about to start. Now it is important to show what the team is made of,” says Binas.
Except for the long-term injured, all players should currently be healthy. In order to remain in the league, it is of great importance that the three post-commissioned professionals Will Cherry, Jamel McLean and Brancou Badio remain in full possession of their strength as a top scorer trio. For their coach Ocampo, the performance in the upcoming games is crucial. In the event of failure, the position could be filled again. A candidate could then be the former Skyliners player Denis Wucherer, whose coaching stations were Würzburg, Cologne and Giessen.
