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Vechta

Brose Bamberg exacts revenge at RASTA Vechta

Vechta, 03-21-2019

This victory was revenge for the embarrassing defeat in mid-January, yet cup winners Brose Bamberg again made things unnecessarily difficult for themselves in the 101:95 win after overtime against newly promoted RASTA Vechta: It squandered a 13-point advantage and was trailing by three points with just six seconds remaining in regular time. However, Tyrese Rice scored with one second left on the clock to take the game into overtime. The team of Head Coach Federico Perego has now swapped places with Vechta to move into third spot in the table.

One thing was made clear in the second game against Vechta, a club that was newly promoted last season: Brose Bamberg does its homework thoroughly under Federico Perego, especially when preparing for games. Whereas Bamberg was unprepared, overrun in defense and thwarted mercilessly in offense in the 67:85 defeat in mid-January, the last game under then Head Coach Bagatskis, the Italian Perego had given his players a precise plan in Vechta: To move the ball below the basket in offense and exploit the size advantage of Bamberg’s centers, as well as to be more focused in moving the ball forward against the full-court press of the club from Lower Saxony. And that paid off after an evenly balanced opening. The 28-year-old Elias Harris was in excellent form, coming into the game with the score at 15:14 and making one lay-up after the other. He notched up 10 of his total haul of 16 points in the first period, enabling his side to pull 24:14 ahead and then finish the first quarter 28:21 in front. And the visitors even survived a short spell of weakness at the start of the second period, when they trailed by 32:33: Augustine Rubit and Cliff Alexander (8 points) were on hand below the basket and drained their shots reliably to recapture the lead by half-time (49:41).

Tyrese Rice helped Bamberg get off to a perfect start after the break with a bucket from downtown, a lay-up and a strong assist to set up a slam-dunk by Elias Harris. That put Bamberg ahead again by a double-digit margin, this time by 13 points (56:43). However, Vechta struck back right away with its first three out of 11 attempts and then added further buckets from beyond the arc to increase the pressure on Bamberg. After Nikos Zisis made it 69:57 with a mid-range shot, Vechta produced a run of eight points without reply to cut the deficit to 69:65. Bamberg then played too hectically in attack and so the home side, fired on by the frenzied crowd, kept on adding points to leave the visitors trailing by 81:84 with six seconds left. Yet Bamberg has the man for magical shots in its ranks: Tyrese Rice. The top scorer (30 points) jumped backwards on one leg in the right-hand corner to throw the ball over the much taller Seth Hinrichs – and drained the shot to tie the scores at 84:84 and send the game into overtime. After trailing 89:93 in it, Bamberg focused again on its own strengths and, after a lay-up by Augustine Rubit (23 points), kept on assiduously picking up fouls and managed to snatch victory from Vechta with eight free throws in a row.

Federico Perego commented: “We played decently in the first three periods. But then we slackened due to a smaller rotation and so let Vechta back into the game. We allowed them to drain too many threes in that spell. But we were then able to clinch victory thanks to my players’ individual skill and fighting spirit.”