BBL

Jerome’s diary entry #10: You play like you practice

We had a nice day off on Monday. The Americans could relax. I had to head back to school. It was alright though. My school seems very Jerome Bridgewaternice. I got lunch with my teachers. I did not introduce myself as a ratiopharm Ulm player. I don`t know. I got some strange looks though. Seemed like some kids did recognize me or know that I am playing basketball for Ulm.

I had a horrible practice week. I don`t know what is going on. I am getting killed at the defensive end at the moment. Not talking about getting crossed or something. That never happened. But defensive Rebounding against Rocky Trice. It is hard. It is probably harder to box him out then Robert Maras for example or Aleksandar Nadjfeji. He is so quick and fast. And it is hard to put your body on him, because he is so small. He will outjump you all the time. You got to put your body on him.

We were having another pre season game against BG Leitershofen, a 1.Regionalliga team. I do not really want to talk about this game. They have not lost a pre seaosn game yet and were ready to play. The first quarter was an up and down. But they couldn`t keep up with us for the whole game. They were hustling though. We were heading with an 20-point lead to the locker rooms.

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Jerome Bridgewater Diary #9: 3 Games In 3 Days

Three games, three days. I figured out that this costs a lot of energy. My body and legs were all sore. Well, I wasn`t the only one. The rest Bridgewaterof my team felt the same way. Today we were facing an All-Star team. A selection of some ball players, which have not sigend with any team yet and are still trying to sign something. If we would win this game, we would win the tournament, because Tübingen just got toasted by Wels with 20.
Darko Jukic, who is usually playing on our team, was playing for the All-Stars for the weekend. He had a few words to us about what he is going to do. Dunking on somebody and so on. We started off well, but the game seemed kind of slow, no intensity. The All-Stars were not playing with any intensity. We didn`t take care of the ball at all and had like 6 turnovers or more in the first quarter. Both team looked rusty out there.

I was already playing in the first quarter. We were down by 7. We had the last possession of the quarter. Lee was penetrating and did hit me on a cut I pumped faked it. My man left both feet from the ground. I leaned a little bit into and got the shot off before the buzzer. I made it. It felt great. I got some high fives from Lee and Mike. That shot did cut the lead to 5.

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Teamcheck: Deutsche Bank Skyliners

Frankfurt’s basketball project has got all it takes to be successful: a nice training ground called BCM (Basketball City Mainhatten), very big Skylinersnames as major sponsors (first Opel then Deutsche Bank) and regular appearances in european competitions.

The first era with Opel had been quite successful as the club won the national championship in 2004 and established itself as one of the big names in german basketball. Canadian coach Gordon Herbert had formed a nice team back then and even when keyplayers like Mario Kasun and Robert Garrett had left the team Murat Didin got the best out of the fundament of the championship team and young talents and led the team to another BBL finals appearance.

But the summer of 2005 had been a turning point in the club’s successful history. Deutsche Bank took over as main sponsor and was giving the club even more money to spend, but false decisions in recruiting players and coaches made Frankfurt’s basketball project lose two years. With the return of Murat Didin Frankfurt success came back to the Skyliners. In 2007 they surpringly made it to the semi-finals and were only two points shy of another finals appearance. While the club was overachieving two years ago, last season was a bit of a disappointment. The club made it to the post season, but was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Oldenburg.

It has been a difficult summer for Frankfurt’s management. Maybe like no other team Frankfurt’s basketball project relies mainly on main sponsor Deutsche Bank. The 5-year contract with Germany’s biggest bank company expires in 2010 and with no guarantee about an extension or an alternative the team was forced to act very careful on the market for most of the summer.

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Teamcheck: Telekom Baskets Bonn

Bonn supporters had been enjoying a lot of sweet victories over the years. And they had, as a four times German vice-champion, bonnwitnessed bitter losses. Still, when the last remaining seconds on the clock ticked away in BBL Finals Game 5 on 25th of July and EWE Arena erupted in joy after a furious Oldenburg comeback, back from three down and Bonn playmaker EJ Rowland at the free throw line with 23 seconds to go, it was harder than ever for Bonn fans to swallow (video Game 5). After all, it was the first time they had actually believed that the championship could be theirs.

Under the guidance of Croatian Bruno Soce and Bosnian Predrag Krunic – the one that led Oldenburg to their first championship, quite ironically – as Soce’s successor, Bonn had been playing entertaining, high-level basketball for several years, however, their rosters were mentally fragile at times and never seemed to make a serious push towards a league championship. The big crash came in 2004/2005, when an extremely talented but unbalanced roster missed the playoffs for the first [and so far last] time in club history. Krunic was fired, yet Bonn decided to continue their philosophy and engaged Danijel Jusup, a Croat who had been coaching almost exclusively in his home country. Jusup put together a questionable roster, and it is safe to say that his way of handling players – a young rookie coming right of college, Jason Conley, in particular – did not make him a lot of friends. Things were heading into the wrong direction, and Bonn corrected their offseason mistake by releasing Jusup and trusting his assistant, Michael Koch, one of the most successful German basketball players of all times, with the headcoach duties. Koch, a rookie head coach, quickly installed a winning mentality. Moving Michael Meeks proved as crucial as the acquisition of Terry Black, who added some much needed athleticism to the roster. Koch managed to reach the playoffs with a roster he would never have had put together himself and his team put up a huge fight – literally – in the postseason versus champions Bamberg.

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Jerome’s diary entry #8: Rivalry, but also friends!

Rivalry! It couldn`t be better than having a home game at 7:30pm on a Saturday night. You got to love it, that is what our assistant coach bridgewaterteampicAdemola Olatunde told us. I met up with my fomrer team-, classmate and friend Andi Kronhardt. We had a nice pregame talk. Also a lot of trash talking was going on like basketball players always do. I’m gonna dunk on you. Three pointer in your face, Block the s§§t outta you etc.
Well, we both headed t o the locker room at the same time. I could feel a little bit nerovsity today. The gym was much more crowded than yesterday. I guess a thousand people. Well, it was the first test for us and me against a 1.Bundesliga team. Former Ulmer player Romeo Travis got booed very badly at the players presentation.

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Teamcheck: Walter Tigers Tuebingen

Since coming into the BBL in 2004-2005, the Walter Tigers Tuebingen have been treading water in the BBL middle standings and at times Tigersscrapping the deregulation area. The best finish of the club was 2006-2007 as they finished in 10th place. The Tigers have been more a harmless creature that seems to have their mouth sealed with little power escaping instead of showing their absolute unconquerable qualities of a tiger on the court.

The team has been known for developing  a healthy fan base and letting guys like Rasko Katic and AJ Moye (his first year) develop into top BBL players, but then again also have gone the usual BBL route of signing an abundance of Americans and closing an eye for further developing German players and the organization also has been prone to getting involved with minor scandals like in 2006 with Tamien Trent and Mike Moten who were banned by the German basketball federation following  a drug test. Making the jump to the BBL is not easy and if one were to ask experts in the Tuebingen surrounding, one would always hear three things. A lack of management know how, a slim budget and not getting the right mix of players. Ex coach Tolga Öngören came in the middle of the 2007-2008 season and started getting the team in a right direction.

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Jerome’s diary entry #7: First Home Game

bridgewaterteampicGame day! We would face the Austrian Champ Wels today. We have had a good shoot around this morning. Mike put at the end of practice a 10 Euro bill at the halfcourt line. And said first who is going to make a half court shot gets the 10 euros. We are shooting in an order. I was seventh though. Everybody in front of me was very close. Now it was my turn. Can you imagine, I just swooshed it in, did not even touch the rim at all. History in the making. I made the first half court shot of this new and young ratiopharm Ulm team. I felt honoured.

I have had a lot of time between practice and the game. We had to be in the gym at 6pm.

Wels wouldn`t be an easy test. Their Point Guard Moore used to play with Rip Hamilton at UConn and everybody knows that UConn won a championship with Rip Hamilton. They also had Jason Conley on the wing, and some guy who was playing at Illinois.

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Jerome Bridgewater Diary Entry #6 Prince

We have had a nice practice week after our road win in Munich. Now we are getting prepared and ready for the weekend. We are going to bridgewaterteampicplay our Fritz and Maciol Cup in Ulm. Facing the current Austrian Champion Wels and also Ulm`s biggest rival Walter Tigers Tübingen. I cannot really wait until this tournament will start. Per headed back to Ulm this week. Although he is injured he seems alright. I thought he would be very down and disappointed at this moment. A couple guys of us had a lot of meetings and events going on.

We have had a player presentation on Thursday night in front of our sponsors. We got introduced to our fans and sponsors. It was very nice and we had a lot of fun as a team. The announcer asked me a couple questions and then asked me, that he had heard that I like to listen to Prince.

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Grayson Moyer Is Looking To Shed Image That NCAA2 Players Are Second Rate

More often than not a player who is going through the rigors of NCAA 2 basketball might secretly be dreaming of lacing up the sneakers for a professional team, but would never openly admit it or actually be living the fairy tale. For Cum Laude mastermind, Grayson Moyer from Humboldt State, he didn´t have the affliction of having to choose what business firm to work for after experiencing a rookie season of hell in the ABA, but moreover saw a second chance of learning complex playbooks and managing his day as a basketball professional in the BBL.

His future was a bit suspect this summer after his ordeal in Alaska, but he kept a positive spirit and his hard work and focus paid off as the Deutsche Bank Skyliners signed him.

“I just kept working as hard as I could in the camps and I never thought that I would get a situation as good as this in Frankfurt. I am simply ecstatic right now”, declared Grayson Moyer.

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Jerome Bridgewater Diary Entry #5: Game Vs Bayern Munich

Today we were heading to Munich to play our next test game against Bayern München. We were travelling in a comfortable 23-seat bus. bridgewaterteampicWe got there 2 hours before the game. The tip-off was at 8pm. So we had plenty of time to get loose, goof around a little bit. With 35 minutes until the game started we started to warm up. The floor was very nice and soft. It seemed easy for me to get up. But I couldn´t keep up with Rocky, Cole and Christian. They did some hilarious dunks. Talking about 360 windmills, off the back board windmill and much more. It seemed like everybody was ready for the game.

Sebastian Betz was also back in action and he seemed very comfortable at the warm ups. No signs of pain. The gym wasn`t very crowded. It was nice to see some Ulm fans in the gym. I did not know much about the Bayern munich roster and was very surprised when I saw Robert Maras, a former German national player, in the gym. He is a 7-footer. He doesn`t look that tall thou like I always imagined. But I felt very honored to get the opportunity to play against him. Well to be honest, I didn`t expect to get any playing time, since I was struggling the last game a little bit on defense. And my lastest performance in practice wasn`t cheerful. My goal for this game to bring a lot of energy from the bench and be aggressive on the defensive end and not to get beat easily.

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