BBC wins 74:66 at FC Bayern

BBC Coburg’s winning streak in the BARMER ProB South 2nd German Basketball League continues: In the encounter on Saturday afternoon, FC Bayern Munich was also not able to stop Coburg from wresting control of the game in the Audi Dome and winning 74:66 (43:32) – its third victory in a row.

“It was an interesting game with ups and downs. But the way we dug ourselves out of our hole again was phenomenal. I really have to pay my team a huge compliment for that,” said a visibly relieved BBC’s captain Christopher Wolf after the game.

The club from Upper Franconia laid the foundation for its victory with a strong start: Princeton Onwas added two free throws to put his side 16:2 in front as early as midway through the first period – Bayern was completely out of sorts. The home side was only slowly able to get into the game and the BBC still led by a margin of 24:13 at the end of the first period.

That would also not change so quickly, as Coburg displayed what was probably its best performance of the season in the first half: Onwas condemned top talent Sasha Grant to insignificance, which earned him special praise from Head Coach Ulf Schabacker afterwards: “That was very strong what he did today. You again saw today that he means much more for us than just delivering points.” Schabacker’s players always found a solution in offense: Christopher Wolf drained a bucket from downtown to make it 39:21, while Onwas remained in reliable form from the foul line. However, Munich was able to capitalize on its chances better from midway through the second period on and kept on finding a route to the basket. Coburg went in at half-time leading by 43:32.

It was the home side who got into the game better after the break: The BBC went five-and-a-half minutes without scoring, while conceding nine points, and suddenly held just a narrow lead (43:41). Coburg was disgruntled and was not able to rekindle the play that had proven so successful in the first half. Daniel Urbano and Timo Dippold put up stiff resistance, but their buckets were not able to prevent Munich from passing the BBC (51:54). Both sides went into the final period tied at 54:54 – the game was up for grabs again.

And it would remain tight for a long time: Games often have a crunch time – a few minutes where they are decided. But on Saturday afternoon, it lasted almost the entire period, in which the game swung to and fro. However, there were then two key actions: First of all, Sven Lorber again drained a shot from outside to make it 68:62 and so put his team on the road to victory, and then shortly afterwards another three by Constantin Ebert stretched the gap to 71:63 and caused Coburg’s bench and its fans to erupt into jubilation. Munich could no longer recover from that shock and shortly afterwards Coburg was able to celebrate its first-ever win against FC Bayern in a competitive game.

Before the journey back home, Captain Wolf expressed how keen he was about the upcoming tasks his team faces: “I’m proud at how we’ve come along after four games without winning. There were even many in Coburg who didn’t believe we could come back and move up into a playoff berth. We aim to keep that up and also win in Speyer next week.”