It wasn´t all to long ago where the Fraport Skyliners couldn´t buy themselves a win as who could forget the second half of the 2013-2014 season where the 2004 Beko BBL champion seemed to grow this nasty phobia that they were unable to win games in crunch time as their reluctance to pull out close battles in that time was about as unlikely as any sane basketball fan now to doubt the possibility of Durant and Westbrook of achieving the upset of the Golden State Warriors. However in the last two years, the Fraport Skyliners have had a steady progress and development in the players play and team chemistry that has put the team into a viable position to reach the Beko BBL final again something they last did in 2010. What the club has produced in the last two months has been extraordinary as they have constructed a 12 game winning streak in the Beko BBL, brought home the Fiba Europe Cup title and swept the helpless and caged Alba Berlin who wanted to fly, fly, fly away, but instead were stopped by the bars in their nest penitentiary. If someone had boldly predicted before the season that Frankfurt would sweep and totally lock down the Alba Berlin offense to an average of 65 points in the three game series, one would have declared you as crazy. The Fraport Skyliners may have been idle for almost a week, but were able to stich up their walking wounded and rest while ratiopharm Ulm had to recuperate faster from their exciting 3-1 series win against the EWE Baskets Oldenburg were the last three games were decided by  a combined total of nine points. Some may have been thinking, if one can sweep the mighty Alba Berlin then why not ratiopharm Ulm? Ratiopharm Ulm entered the Fraport arena with a very strong roster and with their heart and soul diminutive German national player Per Guenther who is their motor and their own Godzilla Raymar Morgan who had not been a beast in the Oldenburg series, but a super beast averaging 24 points and nine rebounds in the four game series. Ratiopharm Ulm wanted to steal the Frankfurt home court advantage on the road and did shocking the Fraport Skyliners in game one 90-86 in OT as they were the first team in five and a half months to depart the Fraport arena with a win. It was a first in many areas for fans and players to bear as the Fraport Skyliners couldn´t execute and hit open shots as if they were on the beach and missed the water and played defense as if it was the first day of training camp as their Skyliner brand of basketball was nonexistent. Fraport Skyliner American Jordan Theodore who enjoys to take over in crunch time couldn´t get the job done in OT and was the first to point a finger at himself. “I didn´t play well at all. I have to play better and will in game two. We didn´t execute on offense and just got beat over and over on defense. In the playoffs, you need to play with a lot of intensity, but we didn´t. We weren´t ready to play. I give a lot of credit to Ulm for getting the win. We lost the game in the first half”, explained Englewood, New Jersey native Jordan Theodore. One may have thought, that ratiopharm Ulm may be more fatigued after the hard four game series against the EWE Baskets Oldenburg, but they were ready to play from the jump and just played an overall solid game and were the first team in months to have scouted correctly in making so much so difficult for Frankfurt. “We played hard tonight. We knew that Frankfurt does a great job with their high low play with Voigtmann and Barthel and I felt we did a good job taking that away. On offense we did a good job executing despite Frankfurt keying in on me and not letting me get more shots”, stated ex Boston Celtics shooting guard Chris Babb.

(more…)