Champions League: Brose Bamberg secures top spot in its group

Brose Bamberg is still a bit shaky in the German League, but is ticking over smoothly in the Champions League: The 90:75 win over RETabet Bilbao thanks to an outstanding second half was its fifth victory in five games. Bamberg is the only undefeated team in the competition and has an insurmountable lead in Group F.

Yet it was noticeable in the opening spell that the team of Head Coach Johann Roijakkers was somewhat disconcerted following the defeat against bottom-of-the-table Rasta Vechta. The meager 3-point field goal percentage from recent games continued until midway through the second period, as Bamberg managed to drain just one out of seven attempts from downtown. Its foreign players, such as Chase Fieler, Michele Vitali or new signing Shevon Thompson, also failed to score from the floor before the break, with the result that Bamberg trailed 11:19 at one stage. When Bilbao went ahead by double digits for the first time (19:29), Roijakkers brought on his fourth German player, Christian Sengfelder. The “German quartet” led by playmaker Bennet Hundt turned the game around in the next four minutes. The outstanding Hundt made five assists in the second quarter. One of the beneficiaries of that was Dominic Lockhart, who bagged 10 points up to the break, while Sengfelder added two lay-ups and Ogbe cut the deficit to 29:32 before being substituted. Devon Hall drained a three-pointer to put Bamberg back in front for the first time since the opening minutes (37:36), but he lost possession later on an attack and allowed Bilbao to take a 37:38 advantage in with it at half-time.

The encounter was fiercely contested for six minutes in the third period until the strong top scorer Christian Sengfelder (16 points) buried his first shot from outside to put his side 54:52 ahead. That gave Bamberg confidence and it was able to keep Bilbao from scoring for almost six minutes thanks to aggressive covering and quick hands in defense – and its shots from beyond the arc also began dropping again at long last. Michele Vitali drained a three plus a bonus free throw to make it 60:52, then Sengfelder added the next bucket from downtown to bring the period to a close (65:52). In the final quarter, Bamberg produced an outstanding 21:0 run to surge 72:52 ahead thanks to buckets from David Kravish (15 points), Bennet Hundt (11) and Kenneth Ogbe (12), but then eased up a little. Shevon Thompson scored a lay-up to make it 90:73 – his first-ever points for Bamberg.

Johan Roijakkers commented: “We went into this tough group as outsiders, and my team has done a great job. We were good in defense, even though we stumbled a bit before the break. Things went better when we played more physically and harder. We often stepped up the pace in offense and scored quick points – Kenneth Ogbe did a good job in that regard. At the end we controlled the game well to secure victory.”

The next game for Roijakkers’ team is on the road at the current German league leaders MHP Riesen Ludwigsburg on Saturday, January 16, 2021 (tip-off: 8:30 p.m.).