HomeSportBG Göttingen
2022/23 in the Den Bosch squad: Jito Kok, here in June 2020 in BG dress at the “Corona Tournament” in Munich. © BBL/nh
That sounds quite feasible, at least on paper: in the draw for the qualifying round for the Champions League at the FIBA headquarters in Mies (Switzerland), Bundesliga basketball club BG Göttingen in Group 2 caught the Heroes Den Bosch from the Netherlands as the first opponent.
Mies/Göttingen – Should the southern Lower Saxony team win the quarter-finals against Den Bosch, the winner of the quarter-finals match Happy Casa Brindisi (Italy) against CSM CSU Oradea (Romania) will be waiting in the semi-finals. In the final, the opponents could be Cholet Basket (France), Telenet Giants Antwerpen (Belgium), FMP Soccerbet Belgrade (Serbia) or Pallacanestro Varese (Italy).
The setting in Mies in the “Basketball House” was worthy. Managing Director Frank Meinertshagen came personally as a representative of the BG Göttingen. The charming Chloe Westelynck moderated the draw, had Michael Kessens (Telekom Baskets Bonn) and Lior Eliyahu (Hapoel Jerusalem) as “lucky fairies” at her side, who drew the raffle balls. BCL boss Patrick Comninos took over the supervision.
The qualifying tournament will be played from September 25th to October 1st. Therefore, at least the start of the Bundesliga at the Würzburg Baskets will be postponed; possibly also the first home game that is not yet known.
The exact schedule will be announced later. According to BG Managing Director Frank Meinertshagen, all qualifying matches will be played centrally in Antalya (Turkey). The three BCL qualifiers will be played in single knockout format; only the respective final winners will participate in the regular Basketball Champions League season, which begins on October 17th. Should the BG not win their qualification tournament, they will in any case take part in the FIBA Europe Cup.
“Den Bosch might still be a viable opponent,” said Meinertshagen after the draw from Mies. Overall, the BG group is a heavy one. And Brindisi (Italy), who meets Oradea (Romania) in the first match, is “the strongest opponent”. On July 14, the BG will find out the exact dates of the games. Should BG survive qualifying, they will face Lenovo Tenerife (Spain), Darussafaka Lassa (Turkey) and VEF Riga (Latvia) in Group C.
The BG will arrive one or probably even two days before the start of the tournament. According to Meinertshagen, the BG would have to pay for travel to and from the event itself – FIBA would bear all other costs. The entry fee of 40,000 euros is also attractive, and there is a bonus for every win. In this respect, the Champions League is far more attractive than the FIBA Europe Cup, into which the people of Göttingen would automatically slip if they did not successfully pass the BCL qualification. The games will be broadcast on TV by the new BBL media partner DYN Media, which will start broadcasting on August 20 with the Handball Supercup.
The FIBA Europa Cup, the fourth-highest Euro competition in which BG failed to qualify at Sporting Lisbon a year ago, will be drawn in Munich on August 8th. Meinertshagen: “We will definitely play there internationally, we have registered for that.”(Helmut Anschütz/gsd)
“Los-Fee” in Mies: Lior Eliyahu, ex-captain of Hapoel Jerusalem, presents the BG. 2 © BG Göttingen/nh
#BCL #start #Göttingen #Den #Bosch
