Paul Kreutzmeier (middle) was the best basket hunter in the Witt Hunters pastures.”>
Paul Kreutzmeier (middle) was the best basket hunter in the Witt Hunters pastures.
Image: Martin Schweitzer/exb
The Witt Oberpfalz Hunters lost the first home game of the relegation round in the Youth Basketball Bundesliga (JBBL) against the favored team from the ratiopharm akademie Ulm with 55:96. Head coach Gabriel Ionescu’s U16 Bundesliga team, which was still weak in terms of replacements, had to once again do without three key players in the game in Regensburg.
The Ulm team, full of national players from a total of four nations, showed their technical and physical superiority right from the start and won all four phases of the game. The Hunters had a particularly difficult time building up the game securely and once again lost a lot of the ball, which the experienced team from Ulm were able to convert into easy points. The team from Ulm also dominated under the boards with their long people and was able to get a number of offensive rebounds. At halftime, the Upper Palatinate team was already 24 points behind. This time, the Upper Palatinate’s weak free throw rate also needed improvement, as they were only able to successfully use eight of a total of 24 attempts. This time the Hunters’ best basket shooters were the recovered Paul Kreutzmeier (16 points), David Ionescu (11 points) and Finn Lohmann (10 points).
“Ulm is one of the strongest teams in the league, there is absolutely no shame in losing to a team like that. “Hopefully our injury list will be shorter soon so that we can play with full strength again. That will be good for us, especially in the build-up to the game,” said Gabriel Ionescu shortly after the end of the game.
The Witt Oberpfalz Hunters will play their next game on December 22nd at the Rhein-Neckar Metropolitans in Mannheim. The next home game will again be played in Weiden (Realschule): The Young Tigers Tübingen will be guests on January 6th (1:30 p.m.).