Bayern basketball players win against Trier: Pesic starts repairs

After the final siren, feelings of farewell and departure were in the air. The hall announcer wished everyone a good start to 2025, a year in which many of the players down on the floor led Germany to the European Championships. The SAP Garden, the new flagship hall for German basketball, was sold out for the top Bundesliga game during the Christmas holidays; the surprise team from Trier brought 600 frenetic fans with them. Bayern, of course, won 94:83 (56:42). And gave the returnee a successful Bundesliga home debut. Svetislav Pesic was only closely associated with Bayern for 3,439 days, but now he has taken on responsibility as coach again. The “new old man”, as many are currently calling him, is supposed to repair what has been broken in the past few weeks at the age of 76.

Now it’s not like Pesic retired when he left Bayern nine years ago. Last summer he took Serbia to the European Championships as national coach, but the team was surprisingly eliminated early in the round of 16. Pesic lives in Munich and often sat in the front row as a spectator at basketball games. So his signing was literally obvious after Gordon Herbert’s leave of absence – but he wasn’t the first choice. Bayern made no big secret of the fact that two other coaches had previously canceled, mainly because the German champions had only offered them short-time work until the end of the season.

So it wasn’t primarily about using an old-school, authoritarian coach to respond to the sloppiness that had crept in over the past few weeks. It’s more of a typical FC Bayern reflex, in times when things aren’t going well, to put someone in the spotlight who enjoys complete trust because he’s basically part of the family. In this case with the emotional sidekick that Pesic’s son Marko experienced his last home game as Bayern managing director on Sunday evening.

At first, Pesic senior sounded like he used to when the team lost under him in the Euroleague shortly before Christmas. “I had the feeling that Hapoel sometimes played 5 against 0,” he said of the victorious team from Tel Aviv. So he seemed to seamlessly continue his final weeks of work in the summer of 2016. His last official actions at the time included arguing with the BBL referees or saying, among other things, about his own center at the time, John Bryant: “He cried more than he played.”

What was even more surprising was his old-fashioned, almost fatherly appearance in the SAP Garden. At the beginning of the game, Pesic was still sitting on the bench, he often stood on the sidelines with his hands in his pockets; protests towards the referees did not deserve this name. And afterwards he actually praised his opponent. “It’s not easy to control the Trier team’s tempo, tempo, tempo,” he said, and Bayern actually didn’t manage to do so in several phases; in fact, they only dominated the second quarter. Pesic was nevertheless satisfied. The decisive factor for the victory was a time-out in the third period, when Trier, already behind, came within six points. Pesic seemed to have found the right words, because less than two minutes later Bayern were 14 points ahead again.

“It wouldn’t be intelligent to experiment a lot now,” says the veteran, referring to four decades of coaching. What is most important is that the players want to change something, and that is “definitely” the case after the top game against Trier. Pesic speaks positively about the absent players such as Spencer Dinwiddie, who is in a “difficult situation”. The NBA veteran traveled to the USA for family reasons. But his experience will be good for the team, says Pesic. He even thanked the audience for their support, which would be needed in the coming weeks.

Bayern are first in the Bundesliga and second to last in the Euroleague

“I think we got a little too sloppy,” said Oscar da Silva, who contributed 13 points to Sunday’s win. What the coach is doing according to his explanation doesn’t sound like rocket science: “We have simplified the game a bit. Our maxim is to play every game hard, run and pay attention to details.” After the New Year’s Eve away game in Rostock, Maccabi Tel Aviv will be the next difficult international opponent in Munich on January 2nd.

And what does FC Bayern want with Pesic? They are currently top of the Bundesliga and second to last in the Euroleague. The boredom in the national competition is bearable, a possible boredom in the Euroleague is unbearable for Bavaria. Pesic’s goal is to work more consistently defensively and to become more variable offensively, in short: to be a little more unpredictable again. “I don’t see any player who has really taken a step forward this season,” his son had previously said as the reason why Gordon Herbert had to leave. This is a clear work order for dad.