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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Teamcheck: MEG Goettingen

If you would have asked the 18 managers of the BBL teams before the 2008-2009 BBL season, which team would be a top the standings at goettingenthe Allstar break, I am sure no one would have predicted that MEG Goettingen would be there, but they were. A spectacular result like this could be comparable to unimposing Formula One racer Nelson Piquet junior as if he had come from nowhere to win 3-4 races and be challenging a Lewis Hamilton or Kimi Raikkonen near the top of the drivers list. Nobody had expected this bunch of relatively unknown players to be so strong and dominate the league. It was refreshing and something that was positive for the BBL. At times it seemed like the Goettingen players had to pinch themselves just to be certain that it was not all a dream:

“Honestly, I wasn’t sure, you read enough of the papers and listen to what people say about you, you can really start to believe that maybe “Gottingen was lucky that day” or maybe our opponent did “just have a bad shooting day.” But Ben Jacobson and John Patrick did a good job at having everyone on the same page and working hard everyday and we eventually realized that winning was an attitude and we should go into every game expecting to win with the way we play”, stressed American Jason Boone.

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That Was No George Foreman Sighting In Paderborn, But Really Nate Gerwig

Nate Gerwig (206-F/C-83, college: Kent St.) is a 26 year old 206cm center that grew up in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He played at Kent BBLLogoState from 2001-2006. He was unable to play the 2003-2004 season on account of being a medical redshirt. In his senior year, he played 32 games averaging 6.4ppg, 3.9rpg, FGP: 58.0%, FT: 58.1%.

In the 2006-2007 season he turned professional playing for Porvoon Tarmo (Korisliiga) in 22 games and averaging 2.9ppg, 2.6rpg. In the 2007-2008 season, he returned back to the States and played in the D League for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants playing 40 games and averaging 3.6ppg, 5.9rpg, FGP: 49.6%, FT: 49.1%. Last season, he played his first season in Germany in the PRO A for BV Chemnitz 99 playing 30 games and averaging 15.6ppg, 8.5rpg, 1.7apg, 1.0spg, FGP: 65.0%, FT: 61.8%. He spoke to German Hoops during training camp.

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Jerome´s diary entry #4: Pre Season Game 2

I was sleepy today. I slept in until 11am. I had a lot of time left, because we had to be at the meeting point at 2.30pm to leave for our bridgewaterteampicsecond pre season game against Gmünden. It was a very short trip. We got there about an hour and a half before the game started. I got a little bit loose before we were getting back into the locker room for our personal team meeting. We didn`t know much about Gmünden, just that they did have a couple Veteran guys. And they really did.  We have had a better start than yesterday and did build a comfortable 6 point lead after a few minutes. They came back thou. Those old guys do really know how to play and how to take advantage of every single mistake.

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Jerome’s diary entry #3: Gametime!

Today I was ready to get tested. We have had our first pre season game in Nördlingen. Fortunately it was a very close trip and we were bridgewaterteampicdriving with a couple cars to the game. I was still studying our playbook while we were travelling. We arrived almost two hours before the game, which was very nice, so everybody had enough time for himself to get dressed and get some shots or own drills off. Then we got, about 45 minutes before the game, back to the locker room.
Mike Taylor was introducing us the keys to success for today’s game and what we have to do and what we have to be good at to win our first game.
Then we did something what really surprised me for a second. Mike told us to come together for a prayer. So we huddled up and we or Mike started praying. The last time I was doing that was more than two years ago, while I was playing High School basketball in the states. I was really missing it. It is very hard to describe and to explain. What it is able to do with an individual and team. I do not know the right words now. It is just great to come together as a team and do things like that. It increases the team chemistry. I felt very warm and comfortable while we were praying. Surrounded by giants, which will protect me and help me up, when I am falling down.
After the prayer, we went out and did run our pre game warm-up. I felt very comfortable with my Jumpshot and everybody else did. I didn’t know that Lee Humphrey is able to dunk. It didn’t even seem hard for him.

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Introducing: The German National Team 2009

After 10 years of constantly playing for Germany Dirk Nowitzki won’t be a part of the national team this summer.DBB-Logo_0

No one in Germany is complaining about that because Dirk was always willing to spend his summers playing with old friends instead of just lying on the beach and be lazy during the off-season. If one just thinks about the long, exhausting NBA season with 80-100 games Dirk has to play between November and May/June and you see that hardly any other NBA player is playing for his national team each and every summer on can’t praise Dirk’s effort high enough.

Nowitzki even turned 31 this summer and you don’t need to be a medical scientist to realise that his body needs the summers now to regenerate more than ever.

The Dallas Maverick also had planned to marry his fiancé this summer, but as we all know thanks to the gossip press this issue has sorted itself out.

So Dirk really intended to play the European championship this summer, but Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban refused to let him play. Cuban allowed Dirk to follow his big dream of playing the Olympics for many years. Now that he has been there last year, Cuban reminded Nowitzki of a promise he gave to sit out the next summer – and Dirk accepted that.

No one knows if Nowitzki will come back next summer or if he has already played his last game for the national team.

Many people saw in Germany a one-man-team. “If Nowitzki would not play for them, they would not even deserve to be in the tournament”, thought many fans and observers during the last few years.

This summer we will see how competitive the german national team can be without Dirk.

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