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“I fired twice into the corner!” BG coach Olivier Foucart even auctioned off his tactics board in Monro’s Park. On the right, moderator and hall speaker Florian Schmidt. © Hubert Jelinek/gsd
So much in advance: BG Göttingen will also play in the Basketball Bundesliga next season and managed to stay in the league as fourteenth in the table.
Göttingen – The only major goal has been achieved. The 16th season in the elite class can come. But the 15th was mixed, sometimes even difficult.
BG managing director Frank Meinertshagen described staying in the league at the jersey auction on Tuesday evening as “confidently achieved. We won the decisive games.” The rescue was “a small miracle” and “not a given”. After all, the financial burden caused by Euro competition was immense.
Meinertshagen was all the more pleased about the BBL license for the coming season, which was granted without any conditions (HNA reported). However, the BG has to carry out a capital increase this summer in order to then have positive equity of 250,000 euros again. “This is already being planned. We are pleased that the license league committee has positively assessed the documents we submitted and granted the license without any conditions,” said Meinertshagen.
Big upheaval
Perhaps the hopes and expectations were too high after the strong series in 2023/24 with sixth place including the playoff quarter-finals against Bayern Munich. After coach Roel Moors and players Till Pape and Harald Frey left for Bonn, his previous assistant coach Olivier Foucart took over the head coaching position and had to recruit a new team for three quarters – nothing unusual in professional basketball. But the footsteps of the three ex-BGers were big.
The new violet team was indifferent. The tall, blonde, lanky Bodie Hume scored 30 points against Crailsheim in the first league game, then had many ups, but also a number of downs – like all the other BG players.
“The attitude with which we played this season was not stable enough,” criticized Coach Foucart shortly before the end of the series, when they had managed to stay in the league with three games to go. The lack of consistency – that was in fact the main problem of the BG 2023/24.
What helped save the game was that captain and record player Mathis Mönninghoff and his team won the direct comparisons against all direct competitors from the bottom of the table (Rostock, Heidelberg, Crailsheim, Tübingen). That was an important bargaining chip in the exhausting, long weeks-long relegation battle. The Göttingen team won eight of the only ten wins (which are generally considered necessary to stay in the league) in the 34 games against teams from the bottom half of the table. The only two successes against teams from the top half of the table were ultimately to make a decisive contribution to the rescue: First, Fiba Europe Cup champion Niners Chemnitz was beaten 100:99 (between his two Euro finals), then the Baskets from Oldenburg were defeated 87:83.
Overtime-Monster
Looking back, it was also a season of BG dramas: the BGers became the “overtime monsters” of the BBL. In total, they played eleven (!) extra times in eight games across all competitions. The Göttingen team won four times and lost four times. The loyal, loud Violet fans (an average of more than 3,100 came per game) were put to the test in numerous games. Sometimes the tension was almost unbearable.
A special chapter was the BG’s first Euro appearance in eleven years. As important as participation in the Fiba Europe Cup was for the image and reputation, it was particularly disappointing financially. The BG added a six-figure sum, partly because of the stressful huge trips to Georgia and Cyprus, among other places. None of the six Euro home games attracted 2,000 spectators – in complete contrast to the Bundesliga games. The Euro competition was just a subsidy transaction.
The 15th first division season ended with only the minimum goal of staying in the league. The majority of the team is likely to scatter to the four winds again. Coach Foucart and assistant Kenneth Desloovere continue. Mönninghoff, Zach Ensminger and young professional Janis Jünemann still have current contracts. (haz/gsd)
Coach Foucart wants to keep Gibson and Hume
. Where the season began, it ended yesterday for the BG professionals: with a team meal at Timberjacks. Today the first foreign players are heading home: David DeJulius flies to Detroit, Mo Gibson to Dallas, Bodie Hume to Denver. Fedor Zugic visits his family in Belgrade; He will soon be flying to the USA for the NBA draft. Return to BG? Rather unlikely, says Foucart, just like Osaro Rich. Grant Anticevich is flying to Australia at the beginning of next week. His new contract in New Zealand has not yet been signed.
. Speaking of Hume and Gibson: coach Olivier Foucart sees them as the players he would most like to sign. Of course, as always, this will also be a question of budget.
. Interesting statistical data: The BG played a total of 6,975 minutes – the most in the main round and 175 minutes more than other clubs. This is due to the eight games in which there were eleven extra times (including the Europe Cup). There were a total of 48 competitive games, 16(!) of which were decided in the plus/minus 5 point range.
. For young professional Janis Jünemann, school now comes first. On Friday the 2.10 m giant has his last high school exam in geography. (haz/gd)
No license for Karlsruhe: just a BBL newcomer
Cologne/Göttingen – Now it’s happening again – and something like that only seems to happen in basketball! In the course of the publications regarding the licensing of the clubs in the Basketball Bundesliga, it became known that the Post Südstadt Karlsruhe Lions, among others, had not received a license for the 1st league. In the playoff semi-finals from Friday they will play against Phoenix Hagen, which, unlike Karlsruhe, did not apply for a license. This now means: There will be no first division runners-up from this semi-final duel, reported the football trade magazine “kicker”, among others.
It could be that BBL bottom team Tübingen or penultimate Crailsheim can still buy their way back into the BBL via a “wildcard”. However, it now costs 700,000 euros and, unlike before, has to be paid in one tranche. This money will probably be missing from the season budget.
And one club is also heading into the games from the second second division semi-final under pressure: main round winners Trier are said to have only received the license “under certain conditions and conditions”. Not good conditions for the semi-finals against Frankfurt. (haz/gsd)
Oldenburg out, Bonn on, Hamburg fighting
Göttingen – Surprising end for EWE Baskets Oldenburg in the play-ins of the Basketball Bundesliga! In front of 6,200 spectators, coach Pedro Calles’ team lost to Veolia Towers Hamburg 81:93 and was eliminated from the competition. At Oldenburg, ex-BGer Geno Crandall was once again the most successful basket scorer with 18 points.
The Telekom Baskets Bonn with the former Göttingen coach Roel Moors as well as Harald Frey and Till Pape beat the MHP Riesen Ludwigsburg 90:69 in front of 4,600 fans and will now play at Alba Berlin on Friday. The Niners Chemnitz will also meet SC Rasta Vechta on Friday.
The last playoff participants will now be determined by Bonn losers Ludwigsburg and Hamburg on Thursday. The winner then plays at Bayern Munich. On Saturday ratiopharm Ulm will play against the Würzburg Baskets. (haz/gsd)
2024-05-15 17:08:05
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