Bologna, Milan, Chemnitz: After the Easter holidays things continue at full speed for FC Bayern Basketball, with the last of ten double-weeks in the top competition and the long-awaited return to their home BMW Park on the schedule. On Monday afternoon, the Munich team set off for Italy, where they are aiming for further EuroLeague victories in Bologna on Tuesday and in Milan on Thursday. On Sunday they will then host the Niners at their arena in Westpark for a BBL clash, and already on the following Tuesday evening they will face Ludwigsburg.
Sunday and the Tuesday after next in the BMW Park
These Bundesliga home games are still a bit away; first the journey goes to Bologna’s Virtus Arena. As is currently the case for quite a few top teams with international commitments (including Bayern), the hosts are also finding it difficult at the end of the exhausting winter marathon to cope with the workload. While the German champions have recently dropped a bit of ground in the BBL, Bologna, who were leading the Serie A, lost at home on Sunday to fourth-placed Venice 82:86 (42:38) and thus had to allow Brescia to draw level with them in terms of wins (both 18:5).
“Two games in Italy lie ahead of us, and as always the next one is the most important – the one against Bologna,” says FCBB coach Svetislav Pesic and emphasizes: “For us, the EuroLeague is not over yet; just as at the start of the season, every game is very important for us. First of all, we want to deliver a good performance on Tuesday. Bologna is transition-oriented and has a lot of offensive talent. But as with all teams, it’s also difficult for them, because of the far too many games, to play with continuity and get good results.”
Edwards also calling the tune at Virtus
That’s how it is: in the EuroLeague, Virtus with a 13–22 record is also behind the targeted postseason spots, while Bayern, after the win over Fenerbahce, stand at 15–20. Their top scorer from last year, Carsen Edwards (17.5 ppg), is also the go-to guy in Emilia-Romagna, with his team enjoying mixed success: at the end of March, coach Dusko Ivanovic was replaced by his former assistant Nenad Trajkovic.
Edwards’ fellow guard Matthew Morgan is averaging 13 points. FCBB homegrown player Karim Jallow (5.6 ppg) remains part of the core rotation. Similar to Bayern, who have played in the backcourt without Jokubaitis, Baldwin, Jovic and at times also Dimitrijevic and Hollatz, Virtus currently has problems at the point guard spot: national team player Alessandro Pajola (4.2 apg) and now also the Argentine Luca Vildoza (7.6 ppg, 4.4 apg) are out injured. The primary ballhandler is therefore likely to be the indestructible veteran Daniel Hackett, 38.
“We want to try to get two wins, and in the last EuroLeague games we have also shown that we still absolutely want to win every game,” says Hackett’s presumed counterpart Justus Hollatz. “These are good tasks and certainly very physical tests for us, especially away from home. It’s always tough in Bologna, and Milan is still fighting for the play-ins. In the Bundesliga we have not looked good a few times recently, and that’s still on our minds. But there have already been so many games overall that we can immediately refocus on the next one now – on Bologna.” Bologna is Bayern’s 64th game of the season.