After a break of almost two weeks, medi bayreuth will start the last third of the bundesliga on saturday (6 p.M.): in the top game of the 23rd round of the bundesliga, medi bayreuth will play the first game of the season. The fourth-placed team from bayreuth plays host to second-placed alba berlin on the second day of the season.
Basketball bundesliga
Alba berlin – medi bayreuth
the last time the teams met was just a few days ago and went badly for bayreuth: in the cup semifinals in ulm, coach raoul korner's team suffered a 74-96 defeat and missed out on a place in the final by a wide margin.
"The fact that bayreuth, along with ludwigsburg, is our closest rival in the standings says it all about the importance and difficulty of this game", says berlin's spanish trainer aito garcia reneses. "The fact that we beat them so soundly in the cup two weeks ago doesn't make things any easier. When you have clearly beaten an opponent shortly before, the temptation to underestimate that opponent before the next encounter is simply gross."
And the berlin fans can look forward to great fan support: by midweek, more than 11,000 tickets had already been sold for the top match in the mercedes-benz-arena. However, center bogdan radosavljevic and junior guard benett hundt are two players who will be absent from the team in the capital. In addition, a decision on the use of u.S. Playmaker payton siva (stomach flu) will only be made at short notice.
Coach eager for revenge
"We've now had a few days to lick our wounds and digest the messed-up cup weekend", says medi coach korner. "Particularly in the game against berlin, we never managed to get our project even remotely off the ground. Even if we can't turn back the clock, the game in berlin gives us the opportunity to prove to ourselves that we can do better."
Korner prefers to remember the first leg of the bundesliga against berlin, which his team won 83-76 in november. At that time, bayreuth center assem marei was absent due to injury, but this time he is able to participate. The same applies to the german national players bastian doreth and andreas seiferth, who are back from the world cup qualifiers against serbia and in georgia without injury.