s.Oliver Würzburg does not give ZZ Leiden a chance in the second half and wins by 87:61

The crowd in the s.Oliver Arena on Wednesday evening saw an evenly matched first half and a second half which s.Oliver Würzburg almost completely dominated: On the 6th and final matchday in Group A, the team of Head Coach Denis Wucherer secured top spot with an 87:61 victory over ZZ Leiden and so booked its ticket for the next round of the FIBA Europe Cup (FEC).

Despite the fact that the first half was evenly balanced in terms of the scoreline, Wucherer was not satisfied with his team’s attitude and focus in the first twenty minutes. Yet his players had started well: The first two attacks by the visitors ended with Cameron Wells stealing possession and Johannes Richter slammed the ball in their basket at the other end to chalk up the first points in the encounter.

However, the FEC’s top scorer Darius Thompson then took control of the game. The American player put last year’s runners-up in the Dutch league 12:17 ahead almost single-handedly. In this spell, Thompson drained three buckets from outside and was able to capitalize on two turnovers against Würzburg to score easy points. The next highlight for Würzburg was not until the end of the first period, when Felix Hoffmann buried the ball from the right-hand corner to make it 17:19.

In the second quarter the club from Lower Franconia recaptured the lead through threes by Kresimir Loncar and Jordan Hulls (27:24 in the 15th minute), but – after losing possession again just before half-time – went in trailing by the narrow margin of 36:37. Wucherer therefore did not mince his words at the break – or after the game: “In the first half we played as if nothing mattered for us. In the second half, we played like profession basketball players for whom it meant something. It’s a good job we were able to switch gear.”

His players managed to do that from the very first second of the third period: Cameron Wells with a three and Brad Lösing with a jump shot to make it 41:37 forced Leiden’s Head Coach Rolf Franke to call a timeout with just one minute gone, but even that did not throw s.Oliver Würzburg off its stride. The home side produced a run of 12 points without reply to surge 48:37 ahead in the 25th minute before Darius Thompson was able to put the first points on the board for Leiden after the break.

Würzburg kept up the pace in offense and made life difficult for the visitors with intense defending – with the result that Leiden managed to add a paltry four points by the end of the third period, whereas Würzburg continued to move the ball well and finished its attacks confidently. s.Oliver Würzburg consequently built a decisive 63:44 lead by the end of the quarter, was able to stretch it to 32 points at times, and ended up coasting to a 87:61 home victory.