Basketball: BCL out for Brose Bamberg

Brose Bamberg lost 73:87 to Benfica Lisbon in the final of the Champions League qualifying tournament, thus missed the BCL main round and will play in the FIBA Europe Cup next season. Only the first quarter was balanced (21:20). Already at halftime, the hosts were in front by eleven points (33:44). The Bamberg team was unable to turn around this deficit in the second half.

Brose came into the game sluggishly, needed about two minutes for the first basket success: 2:6. After that, however, things got better: Wright-Foreman hit a three-pointer, Bohačík two free throws and again Wright-Foreman the And1. The 8:0 run gave Bamberg the lead for the first time. However, it remained the same in the following: Brose had to work hard for every shot, Lisbon was strong in front as well as behind. The game was therefore balanced for almost the entire first quarter. The Bamberg team had what should have been the last attack of the first ten minutes, but shot too early, missed and in return Barbosa netted the three-pointer from the run and with the siren: 21:20.

In the second period, especially offensively, the throws did not want to fall. The Lisbon team, on the other hand, kept going over their big guard and gradually built up a bigger lead. Barely seven minutes had passed in the second quarter when Brose trailed by double digits for the first time after a 0:11 run: 26:37. The score was 33:44 going into the halftime break.

Bamberg came out of the dressing room well, scored five quick points and came back to within six points, a Sengfelder three-pointer shortly afterwards even reduced the gap to three points (45:48). Whenever there was a need in the Lisbon game, however, there was Ivan Almeida on this evening. The man from the Cape Verde Islands took control of the game whenever his team needed it, hitting three-pointer after three-pointer, going to the basket and shooting from half-distance. Brose had hardly anything to counter him. As a result, the Bamberg deficit grew again and was again eleven points at the end of the third quarter: 59:70.

Was there anything left in the final period? Justin Wright-Foreman hit a quick three-pointer, Bohačík added a free throw, and Brose was back within seven points (63:70). What followed from Lisbon? A three-pointer from Almeida, shortly after another and when he not only scored his 32nd point to date with a thumping dunk in the middle of the quarter but also put his team back in front by 13 points, it was clear that that would not be enough for Brose this evening. In the end, Brose Bamberg lost 73-87 and thus missed out on a place in the Basketball Champions League and will play in the FIBA Europe Cup from October 12.