AND ONE!

Weekly round-up for our English-speaking fans by David Hein

Week 10 - March 4th 2014

Jordan-led Bamberg top 100-point mark in blowout of Würzburg

Brose Baskets Bamberg went over the century point total for the first time in 2014 with a dominating 104-66 victory over s.Oliver Baskets Würzburg on March 2 with new point guard Jared Jordan playing a big role in his debut. 

Brose will put their nine-game Beko BBL winning streak on the line on Sunday March 9 against Artland Dragons, who handed Bayern Munich their first home loss of the season and then blew out EWE Baskets Oldenburg in last week’s double round of action.

In his second game back from injury, Sharrod Ford paced five Bamberg players in double figures with 18 points while Anton Gavel and Rakim Sanders combined for seven three-pointers in scoring 17 points each. Casey Jacobsen nailed four treys in tallying 16 points while Elias Harris had 10 points. Despite having just two days of practice after arriving from Telekom Baskets Bonn, Jordan collected five points on three shots to go with a team-high eight rebounds and seven assists.

Finally 100 points again

The 100 points was the first time Bamberg reached the century mark since the 104-93 win at home over Phoenix Hagen on December 22. Brose did a great job passing the ball with 25 assists and they shot the lights out from long range, hitting 17-of-29 treys (59 percent). The victory improved Bamberg’s record to 19-3– second to Bayern’s 21-3.

Würzburg took their only lead of the game with the first basket. Bamberg answered with a 7-0 run. Harris nailed two three-pointers in the early going but the guests hung close 17-14 with two minutes left in the first quarter. Brose closed the first quarter on an 8-0 run for a 25-14 advantage.

Ford and Sanders both hit early triples in the second quarter in pushing the lead to 33-16. Würzburg cut the gap to 35-24 but Gavel nailed two long balls during an 11-1 surge for a 46-25 lead. And Brose finished the first half on an 11-2 run for a 57-31 lead at the break.

Bamberg turned up their defense even more early in the second half and used the long ball to absolutely pull away for good. Jordan, Sanders and Ford all hit from long range as the cushion grew to 70-31. Würzburg finally scored after more than four minutes played and could only get the deficit down to 33 points as Sanders drained two more three balls and John Goldsberry joined the shooting barrage for a 40-point lead – 81-41. The margin was 81-44 after three quarters.

Würzburg scored the first eight points of the fourth quarter to get the lead down to 29 points – 81-52. But Bamberg would not let the guests any closer the rest of the way as Jacobsen nailed two three balls and the lead would grow to as many as 43 points – 104-61.

Jordan pleased with debut

“I didn’t really know what to expect. I’ve only been here two days. But I thought that we played really well,” said Jordan after his debut. “I felt really comfortable. I think it helps having seen Bamberg play so much. I kind of know the plays and some of the systems. It was a good game by everybody and I’m excited. We’ll take this every time.”

Jacobsen was happy about finally eclipsing the 100-point mark: “It’s about time that we got 100 points. It feels like a long time since we’ve really blown out a team. We feel really good about the win. We have a lot more games, a lot of things ahead of us. But it feels good to have Jared come. This was his first game and he really helped us to get into a rhythm offensively. As a team we were consistent defensively from the start to finish,” said Jacobsen.

  Head coach Chris Fleming was also happy about his team’s defensive showing. “We started last week to really show a consistent defensive performance. We didn’t do it over the full 40 minutes but we’re taking a step in the right direction. Today was certainly better, especially Harris and Sanders, who were really consistent defensively,” the coach said.  “Of course we moved the ball really well. Jared helped us in that. The combination of him and John at the point is very good. We really controlled the ball well as a team. For the first time in a while we can look at ourselves in the mirror and say we’re going in the right direction. We still have work ahead of us, we cannot underestimate that. But the guys believe that we can be really good.”

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