Medi Bayreuth wins at severely decimated Göttingen

After its three recent wins in the Basketball Champions League, medi Bayreuth also captured its third straight victory in the easyCredit German Basketball League and so its sixth in a row across both competitions.

medi Bayreuth went into the encounter at BG Göttingen as clear favorites after the news that four of the players of the club from Lower Saxony – Michael Stockton, Darius Carter, Stephan Haukohl and Joanic Grüttner Bacoul – would be missing through injury or illness. Bayreuth endeavored from the tip-off to exploit that advantage. Kassius Robertson in particular started ticking over nicely right away. His first four attempts from downtown all hit their mark and he proved to be the dominant figure in the first ten minutes, in which he chalked up 13 points. Because of its small rotation, Göttingen tried to put up resistance by making frequent substitutions. However, it only succeeded in that for spells at a time and so medi Bayreuth took the first period by 22:16.

The team of Head Coach Raoul Korner kept the pressure up in the second quarter and continued to extend its lead, above all thanks to a strong 3-point field goal percentage. It notched up its highest lead of the evening with the second bucket from outside by Lukas Meisner to make it 38:22 midway through the period. Yet Göttingen never gave up and threw all it could at the other side. Thanks to tenacious defense, the home side forced Bayreuth to concede 12 turnovers in the first half. However, a poor 3-point field goal percentage of just 19% meant that the club from Lower Saxony was not able to get any closer than 38:50 by the end of the first 20 minutes.

medi Bayreuth seemed to relapse into its old ways after the break. A dwindling shooting percentage, some easy losses of possession and poor defending finally let BG Göttingen back into the encounter. With medi Bayreuth leading 68:64, the scene was set for an exciting final ten minutes.

The visitors were able to open up a sight gap again at the start of the last period, as Andreas Seiferth put his team nine points ahead again. After Johan Roijakkers called a timeout, however, the momentum swung Göttingen’s way and it reduced the deficit to 75:76 with five minutes remaining. However, Bayreuth did not let it come any closer. This time it was Nik Raivio who was able to keep medi ahead with two very important mid-range shots in crunch time. Bayreuth ultimately kept its cool in the sometimes pretty heated final spell to capture its 5th win of the season in the domestic league.

Source: www.medi-bayreuth.de