Basketball: Coburg's energetic performance in the second half goes unrewarded

Despite a furious comeback in the second half, BBC Coburg was beaten 94:99 by OrangeAcademy Ulm in the chasing duel. Coburg simply made too many mistakes at both ends of the court, especially in the first two quarters, and so trailed for the entire game. The BBC's top scorer was pointing guard Adrian Petkovic with 28 points. The two youngsters Abdul Karioui and Kristian Ortelli put in promising performances to get their team back into the game.

Head Coach Patrick Seidel summed up the narrow defeat: "After a disastrous first half, in which we didn't find any flow at all in offense and lacked energy in defense, we only conceded 46 points in the second half. That still sounds like a lot, but the game was also much faster and you can live with that against a team like that. We grabbed 25 offensive rebounds, which shows that we gave a lot of energy in the second half and our 1v1 defense was also much better. But in the end, we left a lot of energy out there, you have to grab so many offensive rebounds and make up for a 23-point deficit and you might lose a game because you don't have enough energy. The last 15 minutes were good, but we definitely have to do better before that."

After a weak performance by Coburg in the first half, Ulm deservedly went into the locker room with a 16-point lead. The BBC still did not seem to get into the game at the start of the third quarter and the club from Swabia stretched its lead to 23 points at times. However, a timeout by Head Coach Patrick Seidel midway through the quarter had an effect. Led by captain Sven Lorber and the youngsters Kristian Ortelli and Abdul Karioui, the club from Westphalia embarked on an 18:0 run and fought its way back to within one point. The now revitalized HUK-arena sensed that Coburg's first lead was not far away, but the lead was not changed. Ulm, in the person of Noa Essengue and Maximilian Langenfeld, simply remained too cool-headed in the crucial situations and was ultimately able to secure the important away win, which enabled it to temporarily overtake Coburg in the table. The BBC was nevertheless able to win the head-to-head tie, as it won the first leg in Ulm by nine points.

Since the BBC has no game next weekend, the next game involving Coburg will not take place until Saturday, February 3. The Ahorn Camp BIS Baskets from Speyer will then be the guests in the HUK-Coburg arena.