FICYMIs Dec 24: Only one German coach left in BBL, Real Madrid kids beat CSKA, Spanoulis to coach ANGT teams
Friday In Case You Missed Its: There is only one German coach left in the BBL, Real Madrid's kids beat CSKA Moscow in the EuroLeague, and Vassilis Spanoulis will coach the ANGT Next Generation Teams
Sure it’s Christmas eve but it’s also Friday and that means … the Friday In Case You Missed Its. This is where every week the Taking The Charge substack looks around the WWWs and let’s you know some of the things you may have missed. This week: there is only one German coach left in the German easyCredit BBL after the firing of Denis Wucherer; Real Madrid's highly talented kids beat CSKA Moscow in the EuroLeague; and Vassilis Spanoulis will coach the Next Generation Teams at this season’s Euroleague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament events.
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Wucherer firing leaves one German coach in German BBL
And then there was one … Don’t look now but there is only one German head coach in the German easyCredit BBL league after the firing of Denis Wucherer from s.Oliver Würzburg. The team was struggling at 3-6 in the league but really got no production from two of its main projected leaders: Luciano Parodi and Nicholas Carvocha, who both got injured early in the season.
Würzburg replaced him with Slovenian Saso Filipovski, meaning there are now more Slovenian coaches in the league - Filipovski and Jaka Lakovic from ratiopharm ulm - than German coaches. The only German coach is Sebastian Gleim at HAKRO Merlins Crailsheim.
The Würzburg firing is the second in the league following Johan Roijakkers’ ouster at Brose Bamberg, where they replaced him with Israeli playcaller Oren Amiel. All told, the 18 BBL coaches come from 11 different nations - led by Spain with four (Israel Gonzalez - ALBA BERLIN; Pedro Calles - Hamburg Towers; Diego Ocampo - FRAPORT SKYLINERS; and Jesus Ramirez - Basketball Löwen Braunschweig). There are two Americans (Pete Strobl - JobStairs GIESSEN 46ers; John Patrick - MHP RIESEN Ludwigsburg) with other head coaches from Argentina (Rodrigo Pastore - NINERS Chemnitz), Austria (Raoul Korner - medi bayreuth), Belgium (Roel Moors - BG Göttingen), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Mladen Drijencic - EWE Baskets Oldenburg), Israel (Oren Amiel - Brose Bamberg), Italy (Andrea Trinchieri - FC Bayern Munich), Montenegro (Igor Jovovic - SYNTAINICS MBC), Serbia (Branislav Ignjatovic - Heidelberg) and Slovenia (Lakovic - Ulm, Filipovski - Würzburg).
Real Madrid’s next wonderkids to the rescue in EuroLeague vs CSKA
Loads of EuroLeague teams have been hit with injuries all season and now a number of them have been hit by Covid-19 cases. Real Madrid faced the daunting task of taking on CSKA Moscow without nine players - Fabien Causeur, Vincent Poirier, Thomas Heurtel, Yabusele Guerschon, Anthony Randolph, Juan Nunez and Adam Hanga - as well as head coach Pablo Laso.
No worries … that’s why Real Madrid have the talent factory they have! It’s just next man … er, kid … up.
Helping fill in for those players were teenagers Sediq Garuba, Urban Klavzar and Baba Miller, who were all born in 2004 and made their EuroLeague debuts. The Slovenian Klavzar - a young Slovenian wearing No. 7 for Real Madrid? Where have we seen that? - had the biggest impact with 10 points in 22:53 minutes including two three-pointers and a sick crossover against Daniel Hackett before hitting the floater over Nikola Milutinov. Garuba - the younger brother of Usman Garuba - had 2 points, 1 rebound and 1 steal in 15:27 minutes; and Miller grabbed 1 rebound in 1:54 minutes. Oh, and one of the “regulars” for Real among the nine players was 2003-born Tristan Vukcevic, who was already playing his 12th game in his EuroLeague career and ninth this season.
Here are the Klavzar highlights
Spanoulis returns to game to coach Next Generation teams at ANGT
Euroleague Basketball gave youth hoops fans a fun early Christmas present by announcing that the legendary Vassilis Spanoulis would be returning to the court and would be coaching the four Next Generation teams at the up-coming Adidas Next Generation Tournament events - all four qualifies and the finals in Berlin.
Per ANGT announcement: “Spanoulis will have close friends, Dusan Vukcevic, himself a former EuroLeague star, and Babis Skouzis, of the Olympiacos youth academy, working at his side throughout the tournaments.”
A reason to watch Spanoulis highlights
As if we really needed a reason … but the announcement of Spanoulis coaching the Next Generation teams at the ANGT events is a great chance to look back on why the Greek star was such a legend - and inspiration.
Merry Christmas
And to close … Taking The Charge is a big fan of Christmas songs and we love this one. And we have performed it as part of our band Ukulele First.
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