Three days after the spectacular start to the new EuroLeague season with the close loss at Maccabi Tel Aviv (69-68), the Bayern basketball team already has the first knockout game ahead of them: The defending champions will face their southern rivals Bamberg in the first round of the Cup on Sunday evening, starting at 20:30 in the Audi Dome. There, head coach Andrea Trinchieri's team celebrated the third Cup victory in the club's history in mid-May with an 85-79 final win over Alba Berlin. The top scorer at the time was Paul Zipser (18 points).
Zipser will still be absent from Bayern in the coming weeks, as will center Leon Radosevic (foot surgery). It is still unclear which players Trinchieri will be able to use again in this do-or-die duel as Nihad Djedovic, Andreas Obst, Vladimir Lucic and Gavin Schilling, who are all in rehabilitation training.
Bamberg undefeated in the BBL
What is certain, however, is that Bayern will play for the first time in their second kit alongside the red home jersey. The new away jerseys will be available in the fanshop for the first time on Sunday (online starting Monday).
Brose Bamberg started in the BBL with two wins, away in Goettingen (82-76) and at home against Giessen (89:87). The Upper Franconians are no longer represented internationally after failing to get past the qualifiers against Utena from Lithuania in the third-highest competition, the Champions League.
The eighth-place team in the 2020/2021 BBL regular season has further strengthened its German rotation with returnee Patrick Heckmann (from Ulm/10 ppg). The top scorer so far is US guard Omar Prewitt (25.5 ppg), who came over from Nymburk in the Czech Republic and scored the winning basket against Giessen. National player Christian Sengfelder (14.5 ppg) and new playmaker Justin Robinson (13 ppg, 6 aps) have also been eye-catching figures so far for the 2019 Cup winners.