FC Bayern Basketball: Outpaced in the Bundesliga, still in the Euroleague

“They taught us how to play physically, at what level of contact and at what pace. That was a big lesson.” Milenko Bogicevic, the head coach of the Oldenburg basketball team, said this in the face of a 60:113 humiliation in Munich’s BMW Park.

Oldenburg is a basketball location with a great tradition; the Lower Saxony team were German champions and cup winners. However, the last notable results were a while ago: three years ago the team was in the playoff quarter-finals, and most recently they missed the knockout round twice in a row. That doesn’t correspond to the standards of a founding member of the Basketball Bundesliga, and that should change this season.

For this reason, the Oldenburgers have brought in a new coach in Bogicevic, and the squad has also been almost completely restructured. Continuity is the key word that will determine the coming seasons. And it got off to a good start, victories against the Central Germans BC and Würzburg – both playoff candidates – as well as Hamburg were the starting point for Sunday’s game at FC Bayern Munich, which was consequently given the label “top game”.

The unbeaten table leader Oldenburg against the also unbeaten pursuer from Munich, after clear victories against Bamberg and Berlin. However, one could only speak of a reasonably balanced game in the first quarter – Oldenburg was 18:17 ahead – after which Bayern rolled over the pitiful guests like a red steamroller.

Three clear victories for Munich are fueling fears of boredom in the national game

The 40:13 in the second quarter sounds like the result of a test match in which a first division team meets an ambitious amateur team; at halftime the game was decided. After Bayern’s first 108:72 victory against Bamberg, experts were still wondering whether the Upper Franconians were so bad or the championship favorites were so good. In the 95:61 defeat that Alba Berlin received at Bayern, injuries to the defending champion, who also largely retained their championship squad, could be cited as a possible explanation for the opponent’s superiority. After Sunday’s performance, there is a risk of feared boredom in national operations.

Especially since Bayern coach Anton Gavel recently let it be known that he still sees a lot of sand in the team’s gear. Of course, this statement was not due to the Bundesliga games, but rather the recent results in the Euroleague. This is the competition in which the Munich team wants to prove themselves first and foremost; the playoffs are the declared goal, which the Munich team recently missed four times in a row. In addition to the sporting management – alongside Gavel, sports director Thorsten Leibenath came from Ulm – the squad was largely redesigned; the club only relied on continuity in the German positions with a number of world and European champions.

This quality, which has also been expanded to include Johannes Thiemann, benefits the team especially in the national competitions; in the BBL, six German players have to appear in the 12-man squad. What the Oldenburgers can now also report on – Thiemann (15), Oscar da Silva (17) and Niels Giffey (10) scored double-digit points. There are also top-class foreigners in the team: Duane Washington, for example, top scorer with 19 points, or Rokas Jokubaitis (10), the Lithuanian playmaker was injured for the entire preseason and is gradually getting into his stride. Gavel has 15 top-class professionals in the squad and part of his job will be to keep them happy and excited. It is striking that the new Munich coach has consistently rotated the squad from the start of the season; against Oldenburg, for example, the highly praised newcomers Miles Norris, Austin Wiley and Marjon Beauchamp were not used at all.

It was probably no consolation for Oldenburg’s coach Bogicevic that, despite their quality, Bayern had to go through a similarly bad experience when they clearly lost 76:100 to Final Four participants Istanbul in the Euroleague. After the 86:84 surprise coup at Hapoel Tel Aviv at the start of the Euroleague season, this was the feared “slap in the face” in the elite European competition, as the coach later admitted. The 84:86 home defeat against Partizan Belgrade on Friday was far more painful for Gavel, especially since his team was still leading by double digits shortly before the end of the third quarter (65:52) – but paid tribute to the high error rate in a nerve-wracking final phase: With 17 ball losses, his team had to “take better care of the ball,” said Gavel. It seems as if Bayern are playing on two different basketball planets, and the team has to get used to that.

At the highest European level, it’s the little things that make the difference, as world champion Thiemann learned: “We did a lot of things right and then we couldn’t control the key players for just five minutes.” There’s no reason to despair, says Thiemann: “We trust the system, it’s a good system. But it takes time.” Of course, coach Gavel also sees it that way, there is still room for improvement, especially in the playmaking position: “We didn’t find the right line-up on the one,” by which he meant the coordination between Washington, Jokubaitis and world champion Justus Hollatz. Defensively he “liked this key position a lot, but not offensively.” Gavel said on Friday evening that they will not “govern with sadness,” but will instead give an answer.

The first response went to Oldenburg. Bayern want to have their say internationally next Thursday, when Bologna will be a guest in the Euroleague at the SAP Garden.