With the Euroleague exit, the Bayern basketball players are missing their second goal of the season

Iever further. These two words represent Svetislav Pesic’s mantra. They also adorn the title of his recently published biography, in which he looks back on his life’s work in basketball, which is marked by great successes: The Serb was world and European champion, won the Euroleague with Barcelona and championship titles in Yugoslavia, Spain and Germany – including with FC Bayern Munich. Of course, the 76-year-old does not see his professional work as finished, which in turn has to do with FC Bayern. He is employed there as a trainer and is fighting for further entries in his CV, but has now had to accept a setback.

Since Wednesday, the Euroleague playoffs have also been mathematically out of reach for his team. With its win at Vitoria-Gasteiz, Red Star Belgrade destroyed the last theoretical possibility that Munich could still slip into the play-ins. There, the teams from seventh to tenth place play for the last two of the eight playoff places, five wins short of tenth place – four game days before the end of the main round. The 93:83 win against bottom team Villeurbanne on Thursday evening couldn’t change that: FC Bayern is currently ranked 14th, which is well below this season’s expectations.

After the semi-final exit in the national cup competition, missing the knockout round early is the second failure that the ambitious Munich team had to endure; defending their title in the national competition can only save the messed up season to a limited extent. The newly assembled team was unable to meet expectations, especially on the international stage. However, FCB had to accept a decisive setback before the first pass was played: Royal transfer Rokas Jokubaitis, the central figure in squad planning, tore a cruciate ligament at the European Basketball Championships in autumn and is still on sick leave. The Lithuanian playmaker will probably be the most prominent addition next season.

In addition, the game plan gave Munich seven Euroleague away games in a row early in the season – and coach Gordon Herbert was out for a long time due to a post-Covid illness. And the highly touted NBA signing Spencer Dinwiddie, who was supposed to fill the gap left by Jokubaitis’ cruciate ligament, never really gained a foothold given the prevailing unrest. When he had to go home at the turn of the year due to family illness, his contract was terminated early.

The result of this turbulence was a devastating series of eight defeats, and those responsible pulled the emergency brake by dismissing world champion coach Herbert. The master coach of the 2014/2015 season took over; given the high-class and dense field of participants, the Euroleague playoffs had already disappeared into the unattainable spheres even for Pesic.

Then Pesic came along, established old virtues and put together a series of seven wins from nine games

Pesic established old virtues such as discipline and hard work in training, focused on defense and simplified the system and processes offensively – despite seven wins from nine games, he was no longer able to keep up. As a result, he can hardly be blamed for the misery, but he has to take the surprise cup exit on his lapel. That leaves four meaningless games in the continental premier class – as well as ongoing bad luck with injuries. Against Villeurbanne, two playmakers were missing in Stefan Jovic and Nenad Dimitrijevic, who was signed up for Dinwiddie, and Kamar Baldwin, one of the more prominent additions, has been out for months.

All in all, there is too much burden on the shoulders of Andreas Obst, especially offensively, who consistently scores at a high level but is increasingly becoming the focus of the opposing defensive lines. After the game against Villeurbanne and with a view to the Euroleague exit and the top teams, Pesic complained about the lack of individual class in the squad. Which cannot apply to the Bundesliga given that there are around five world and European champions. Despite all the problems, the team there is still clearly the best team. Including players like Justinian Jessup, who came from Ulm and achieved his best in his first Euroleague season on Thursday with 19 points. Or center giant David McCormack, who hardly played a role under Gordon Herbert and is now showing significant leaps in performance.

“The word excuses is not in my vocabulary,” said Pesic, referring to the upcoming tasks. The German championship title is firmly planned and sports director Dragan Tarlac has long been busy planning the squad for the coming season: “We learn in every game, even from defeats.” He won’t take stock publicly until after the season, then the coaching personnel will also have to be clarified. Pesic’s contract will then end, but he has already made it known that he would still be available. On and on.