Gießen 46ers Rackelos

The wiha Panthers Do it Again German Style Almost Always Wining It In The End Pulling Out Dramatic 101-100 OT Win In Giessen

One thing is for sure nobody who follows the Pro B closely or is a wiha Panthers Schwenningen fan can say that the season of the newcomer hasn´t been spectacular or exciting. Of course the success of his team doesn´t surprise head coach Alen Velcic, but for others not as close to the club would have had the audacity to predict that the team would have such an exciting season. The club won some very exciting close games, saw the Pro B break through of jovial Mr everything Rasheed Moore and even experienced some tough tough games when they were without their captain the strong muscled kostas Karamatskos who always seems to have one expression on his face as a guy who is all business on the court. The playoffs remained very dramatic for the club from Schwenningen as they were down 1-0 to SC Rist Wedel in games and fought back to in two do or die games in a row and were in the same position again with the Rackelos Giessen. After stealing a very exciting 92-86 victory in Giessen were Rasheed Moore took control in crunch-time, the club came back very confident to slam the door on Giessen as everybody expected a win, but instead the guests showed immense heart and fighting qualities winning 81-76 on the road. Borekambi who continues to have an amazing playoffs and Moore combined for 42 points, but they couldn´t keep talented young German Bjarne Kraushaar under control as he netted 23 points and the few more possessions that Giessen had at the end made the difference. After two excruciating long road trips to Wedel that covered 2000 kilometers, the club had to go back to Giessen for a second time, but all in all had a lot more comfortable trip as it was less than half way to Wedel.

Pandimonium breaks out in wiha Panther country after the buzzer sounded beating Giessen 101-100 in OT

 

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Giessen Rackelos Escape The Dragon Dome Beating Rhondorf 74-70

It was still late summer, the weather was great and the Pro B season was just underway in it´s second weekend on September 29th, but the season of the Dragons Rhondorf had began slowly and their disgusting 102-56 drubbing in Giessen should have been a bad omen for the season. In this game the 2015-2016 Pro A team Dragons Rhondorf couldn´t muster anything on offense and shot only 3/21 from the parking lot while Giessen was very sharp from downtown nailing 12 trey´s and totally dominated the boards 42-25. Another interesting stat that would haunt the Dragons Rhondorf the whole season was how well their German players were able to score. Giessen got an incredible 74 points from their German players while the Dragons had to settle for only 37 points. This season has been a major struggle for the Dragons Rhondorf and with the stretch run of the season having arrived, they are in severe danger of moving down to the Regionalliga if they can´t start winning some games now in the last month to be in better position in the playdowns where each of the last four teams play each other twice and the best two remain in the league. The Dragons Rhondorf came into the game in the Pro B cellar with a 4-14 record while Giessen has been the big surprise team of the season as they sit comfortably in the playoff area in fourth place with a 10-8 record. They have had a tale of two seasons as they lost seven of their first nine games, but since then have won eight of nine games including three games in crunch-time. The Dragons Rhondorf were desperate for a victory and wanted to seek major revenge for their pathetic loss by 45 points in Giessen and played a lot better than the first game, but couldn´t full end their amazing fourth quarter comeback as the guests escaped the Dragon Dome with a 74-70 victory. After the win a disappointed Lotola Otshumbe tried to explain why the club was unable to pull out the win. “Our energy on defense wasn´t consistent. If you want to be successful in the Pro B, you need to bring this for 40 minutes. We had big problems on transition defense in the first half. We rebounded very well, got steals and fought back in the second half. If we can stay positive and bring energy than we can play with anyone. The question is why we can´t do it from start to end”, stressed Dragons Rhondorf forward Lotola Otshumbe. After the big win Giessen guard Jesten Lewis was relieved that the team could pull out the win despite the big comeback. “Defensive rebounding got us the win. We were outrebounded in the first half, but rebounded better in the second half. We played together on offense and stayed composed at the end”, added ex Mercer(NCAA) guard Jesten Lewis.

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Adam Klie (Giessen Rackelos) I Take Pride In Trying To Impact Many Aspects Of The Game When I’m On The Court

Adam Klie is a 23 year old 193cm guard that was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in Anchorage and is playing his second professional season and first in Germany with the Giessen Rackelos. Currently he is averaging 11,5ppg, 5,4rpg and3,5apg. He is shooting a respectable 44,4% from outside. Last season he playedhis rookie season with the Niagara River Lions (Canada-NBL Canada) playing 44 games averaging 6.1ppg, 4.7rpg, 2.3apg, FGP: 54.9%, 3PT: 31.3%,FT: 48.4%. He began his basketball career with Service High School and played at Cal-San Diego (NCAA2) from 2013-2017. In his senior season he played 30 games averaging 15.2ppg, 6.1rpg, 4.5apg, FGP: 49.3%, 3PT: 45.7%,FT: 58.6%. He spoke to germanhoops.com about basketball late in the summer.

Miles Schmidt-Scheuber interviewing Adam Klie after a game in Frankfurt

Adam thanks for talkingto germanhoops.com Where are you at the moment and how was your summer?

 I just arrived in Giessen, Germany on Wednesday. My summer was great, a lot of work put in the gym while enjoying the San Diego weather and people.

Before we talk about your passion of basketball, I have to ask you about your favorite soccer player Robert Lewondowski. Have you checked schedules of Frankfurt or Dortmund when FC Bayern Munich plays there so you could possibly go and see him Live? Frankfurt is probably your better bet since Dortmund tickets are real tough to get.

I haven’t looked at the schedule yet, but I am planning on going to some Bundesliga games while I am here. It would be even more special if I could see Bayern and Lewa play so I plan on seeing if I can make that happen!

 After playing your rookie season in Canada, with what kind of feelings were you going into your second summer of looking for a new team? Was Europe early in your thoughts about attempting to make the next step in your career?

I liked being out in Canada a lot, but I think a large part of me wanted to experience basketball and life on another continent. There are many good leagues and teams in Europe so it was a place that came to mind immediately when I was looking for a club.

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Garai Zeeb Powers The Fraport Skyliners Juniors To Best Start In Their History Beating Giessen Rackelos 80-72

EasyCredit BBL team Fraport Skyliners are in their 20th anniversary season while their farm team Fraport Skyliners Juniors that have stood for top youth development since years bringing up top players like Johannes Voigtmann, Danilo Barthel and Isaac Bonga and making them to Euroleague and NBA players. The farm club was started in 2009 and they are also celebrating an anniversary with their 10th season in the German Pro B league. Over the years besides helping young and dedicated German talents develop, they also have had success as they reached the Pro B final in 2016. A big problem with the success rate of this club is simply that they don´t always have all their players to choose from in any given game simply because there are a handful of double license players on board that often are with the easyCredit BBL team. So far their anniversary 10th season has began quite well as in the first time in their history the club has started perfect and have a 2-0 record. They began the season with a hard fought victory in Rhondorf 75-68 where their three point precision stood out with 11 three´s and a week later they returned home for a duel against TG s.Oliver Wurzburg and ex Frankfurt Pro B head coach Erik Detlev that also was a difficult win to achieve as they pulled out a 74-68 victory against their ex coach. They didn´t shoot as well as in Rhondorf, bit rebounded better and especially picked up their defense forcing Wurzburg to 25 turnovers, but in a way were also lucky despite 13 turnovers less and over 20 more shots eked out the win. Also a new shooting star from Sweden was born with Elijah Clarance who is averaging 19,0ppg and now they were up for the next battle against neighbor Giessen Rackelos that is the farm team of easyCredit BBL team Giessen 46ers. The Hessen neighbor started came into the contest with a 1-1 record with a tough 87-71 loss on the road against very ambitious new team Schwenningen and then returned home last weekend and let out all their frustration crushing the Dragons Rhondorf 102-56  nailing 12 three´s, controlling the boards and forcing the opponent to 21 turnovers. The Fraport Skyliners Juniors wanted to keep the 0 in the loss column and did getting by Giessen Rackelos 80-72 and moving their record to 3-0. It wasn´t a perfect game from Frankfurt, but as usual they had the right answers from their deep roster and certain moments in the game. “We didn´t start well giving up easy baskets. We got a good lead in the second quarter with good ball movement and fast break points. In the second half we did a good job with defensive rebounds and keeping up defensive pressure not letting them get into their sets”, stressed Fraport Skyliner Junior Konstantin Schubert. Giessen was undermanned and played a good game, but just couldn´t get the big stops in big situations. “We started well, but then let them push us around which we couldn´t recover from. We weren´t as aggressive or as confident as we needed to be to be able to win. When things got rough, we tried to do too much and didn´t stay within our system. We were too disorganized and didn´t have the juice to beat a deep team on the road”, stressed ex Cal-San Diego (NCAA2) guard Adam Klie.

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Miles Schmidt-Scheuber interviewing Adam Klie from Giessen who finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds

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