Split 2013, EM Diary: Entry 2

  • Datum: 23.07.2013

Split 2013, EM Diary: Entry 2

Hello everybody! In the second entry of our European Championship diary, we report on the opening ceremony and the second group match against the selection of the University of Moscow.
split 2013

Opening ceremony

After the hard-fought victory against the Hungarian team from Debrecen and an extensive tactics discussion, the opening ceremony of the tournament took place directly on the beach promenade of the beautiful harbor city of Split.
The European Studi-Basketball Championship is the first major sporting event in Croatia since the country joined the EU at the beginning of July. Due to this fact, the student event enjoys great attention and also state support, which was noticeable in the perfectly organized and very exposed opening ceremony.
Very good public relations work in the run-up, musical and acrobatic program points, live bands and a DJ to the conclusion of the meeting... it fitted everything on this marvelously warm summer evening at the edge of the historical old part of town.

The Karlsruhe delegation was looking forward to the match against the seemingly overpowering opponents from Moscow after this beautiful end to a successful day of sports....

2nd match against the University of Moscow

Already during the warm-up it became clear...the starting five of the opponent is completely dunkable....

In the initial phase our team pulled itself out of affair outstandingly and could arrange the play even to a large extent. Against a perhaps somewhat surprised opponent our team showed a great performance. Towards the end of the 1st quarter, the Russian team was able to pull away a bit and it went into the first quarter break with an 11:18 deficit.

In the second quarter, the Muscovites were able to pull further away, but this was more due to the poor throwing choices of our guys than to the strong play of the opponent.
However, the KIT team continued to show a good fighting performance and could reduce the score to 6 points in the middle of the second quarter (19:25). At halftime, we had to accept a 10-point deficit, but in the second half of the game, everything was still possible for our guys.

After the break, our team continued to fight back, but the Muscovites now played their physical advantages to the full and were able to pull away to 18 points by the end of the quarter (37:55).

In the last part of the game, the experienced Russian team was able to easily maintain or extend this lead. However, on a cream day of our guys at least a close game would have been possible. Unfortunately, the throwing quota did not allow more on this day. Thus it came to an all in all nevertheless deserved defeat against one of the tournament favorites (46:75).

To this statement also our coach Uli Himstedt came: "The boys have tried everything, but we could call our normal performance only at the beginning of the game. Now all our concentration is on the last group match".

Conclusion : The Russian team lived up to their role as favorites and for our boys it is now: Check off the game and bundle all forces for the decisive game tomorrow, Wednesday at 15:30 against the Portuguese team from Coimbra.
With a victory, the quarterfinals of the European Championship beckon, perhaps even against the Croatian host.

As always, you can find a few impressions in our picture gallery for this entry!

Let's go guys! All the power into the next match!