Ulm – Frankfurt, the boring level of basketball
As I wrote before the Eurocup is a shadow of the former European competition. A lot of weak teams were included in order to compensate for the absence of the teams that migrate every season to the brand new Basketball Champions League.
The Euroleague organizers who are in charge of the Eurocup too were too desperate to involve there any team that could be convinced to join the competition. That’s how mediocre teams like Ulm, Frankfurt, Mornar Bar, Gdynia, Brescia and so on were mixed up with top European teams like Unicaja Malaga, Valencia, Unics of Lokomotiv Kuban.
The yesterday battle between the two German teams was ridiculous and can confirm my sayings. Fraport Skyliners Frankfurt came to Ratiopharm Ulm having a lot of missing injured players. But the host played so bad like they smoked marijuana just before the game. They didn’t care about anything, allowing offensive rebounds, making a lot of turnovers, scoring so bad from the arc etc.
I understand why the visitors played bad because they had just 5 decent players due to the injuries. But I didn’t understand why Ulm didn’t take advantage from that situation, playing hard, scoring 100 points and destroying Frankfurt. This season, they played much better in the group phase, defeating stronger teams like Crvena Zvezda, Galatasaray, Andorra, Brescia. And now Ulm almost lost the game against the weakest version of Frankfurt.
I think is lack of interest, which is similar with lack of respect for the game and fans, because both German teams are now in the TOP 16 and they know that this is the best they can do. They have any chance to qualify for the playoffs. So now, play dumb with minimum effort for the same salary cause nobody will say anything!
Gratian Cormos, info@brainbasketball.net
