Basketball: BBC ends main round with home win

In the last game of the main round of the BARMER 2nd Basketball Bundesliga ProB, BBC Coburg earned an 81:75 home victory against Basketball Akademie Ludwigsburg.

Before the first play-off game in the HUK-COBURG arena next Saturday, BBC head coach Milos Petkovic was primarily concerned that all players remain healthy and therefore fit for action. Therefore, he tried to distribute the minutes among the players. Johnny Zilinskas benefited from the extended rotation, scoring 13 points in his best performance of the season and playing a major role in the BBC's comeback in the hot phase of the game.

Coburg's basketball players struggled with their three-pointers on Saturday evening, with only three of 23 distance shots reaching the target, a rate of only 13 percent. The fact that Ludwigsburg were able to keep up with the hosts for a long time was also due to the fact that they shot much better from outside with 39 percent. Luca Stübel in particular, with his accuracy, repeatedly put the young Swabians on the spot.

But everything had started quite differently. Significantly, Tyreese Blunt opened the match against his former club with a triple. After that, however, things did not go well for the hosts offensively. The basketball academy capitalised on this and was able to pull away to four points towards the end of the opening quarter. Coburg did not manage to seriously embarrass Ludwigsburg until the break either, partly because the shots were not falling and partly because the necessary bite was also missing in defence.

"Unfortunately, we were not at the right level in the first half and therefore could not defend physically and aggressively. If the throws don't fall, we have to get offensive rebounds and we only had one of those, I can't accept that," Coburg's coach Petkovic analysed what happened before the break. After two quarters, the guests still led 43:35.

Things went much better for Coburg from the third quarter onwards, which was mainly characterised by defensive play. The Coburg team managed to limit the guests to only twelve points in this period. Since the three-pointers were still not falling, the team from Coburg worked for points at the free-throw line and under the basket. Captain Sven Lorber weaved his way through the Ludwigsburg defence a few times to then finish with a basket shot. Before going into the final quarter, BBC reduced the deficit to 51:55.

At the end of a 9:0 run, Coburg was back in front. Blunt made it 56:55 with his second three-pointer before Nico Höller increased the lead to 58:55. But the guests also converted two three-pointers and the lead changed back and forth. It was not until four minutes before the end that Coburg set the decisive accents. Zilinskas, Carrasco and Blunt were responsible for another 8:0 run, which Ludwigsburg could not answer.

In the first play-off round, Coburg will most likely host Rasta Vechta II next Saturday. The round of sixteen will be played in "best-of-three" mode, a possible third game would then take place in Coburg again.