European Prospects

On Sunday, the Finals of the German JBBL and NBBL season crowned IBBA and ALBA Urspring with the respective titles. For the JBBL, it was the first time ever that the title has been awarded while Urspring received their third NBBL crown in the 4 years of existence of the Youth League. Here we go for the roundup of the games.

• The JBBL Final was a game between the two teams from Berlin, International  Berlin Basketball Academy IBBA Berlin and ALBA Berlin. IBBA was considered as the main favorite for the title as the team of Milan Pesic did not lose one game throughout the season. And they showed on Sunday morning why this was the case. A superior individual talent on nearly every position and more possibilities coming from the bench ended in a big win 77-56 for IBBA Berlin. Mauricio Marin, who was the top scorer in the semi-finals showed that he is more than just a scorer when his shot is not falling. The elegant guard had 5 assists in the game together with his 20pts and 8rebs. He got support by the long Robin Jorch who finished with 16pts and 9rebs while PG Oben Ebof-Etchi was more aggressive in terms of scoring but showed also that he is probably not the best shooter at the moment. He had 13pts (5/14 FGs), 9rebs, 4asts, 5stls and 0 turnovers in an effort that nonetheless was very impressive. For ALBA, Andrej Pavicevic could not continue his semi-final show and it was Marley Jean-Louis who took over the leader role on offense with 21pts and 4rebs but also 7tos. To sum up, IBBA Berlin was the totally deserved winner of the competition and it will be highly interesting to follow the development on this talented team next season in the NBBL.
• The NBBL Final was marked by the success of ALBA Urspring that managed to beat ALBA Berlin for the first time since the NBBL Finals 2008 where they lost against… Urspring. The game started slow but Urspring could set a first exclamation mark on a powerful dunk by Nevylle Richter to take the lead at 13-6. Niels Giffey answered however with a three pointer and ALBA Berlin could come back in the game at 17-15 when Giffey had a tremendous block-shot that could have been a total momentum swing. But Berlin could only score 2 more points in the 2nd quarter while Felix Engel hit a big three on a Kevin Bright kick-out and Urspring led at half 30-17. ALBA was really stuck offensively and did not manage to play their game against the very good defense of Felix Czerny’s team. The second half started like the first ended with Urspring dominating on defense and hitting a multitude of three pointers to counter every ALBA Berlin basket. Engel started to heat up in his last NBBL game and when Konstantin Klein had an airball on the free-throw line which was followed by the 4th foul of Giffey, it looked like the game was decided at 43-27 and 48-33 at the end of the third quarter. A quick spurt to start the last ten minutes was orchestrated by Dawit Villarzu with a three-pointer and the disappointing Malte Ziegenhagen who had 3FTs and a charge in a row to bring their team back to 48-40. But a block shot by the fantastic Kevin Bright, who was the real decisive player for Urspring throughout the weekend and a huge tip-dunk by Justin Raffington showed who was the better team on Sunday. The teams traded points now but a decisive offensive rebound by Kevin Bright on the edge of the last minute followed by a foul on the forward on the three-point line cut the last chances for Berlin to defend their title. Felix Engel finished with 19pts (4/4 3s) while Julius Wolf had only 3pts but 7rebs, 4asts and 2stls. The 12pts of Niels Giffey and Joey Ney were not enough to overcome an Urspring team that was simply better on Sunday.
• The detailed player reports for both JBBL and NBBL Top4 teams will come online in the next days.