news">Back to overview
NINERS want to improve against Oldenburg.
This Sunday at 4:30 p.m. there will be a duel between two playoff aspirants in the Chemnitz trade fair when the NINERS, third in the table, host the currently tenth-placed EWE Baskets Oldenburg. Both teams are separated by seven places, but at this early point in the season only a single win separates them. A swap of places would theoretically be possible, but the “Orange Army” would of course like to extend their series of four BBL successes in a row and thus continue to establish themselves in the top third of the table. Oldenburg, on the other hand, will try to score points abroad for the first time, as all their victories in the Bundesliga have been at home. The Lower Saxons are pinning their greatest hopes on the recent coaching change, in which Mladen Drijencic, who led Oldenburg to cup victory in 2015, inherited the Spaniard Pedro Calles and returned to his old place of work after almost three years. The duel between Chemnitz and Oldenburg is officially organized by SACHSENLOTTO (www.sachsenlotto.de) presented and accompanied by various promotions and competitions in the foyer. Almost 4,500 tickets have already been sold, but numerous remaining tickets, including over 200 seats in the unused guest fan block G, are still online (https://tickets.chemnitz99.de) or available at the box office. The game will also be live again on DYN (www.dyn.sport) and also broadcast freely on WELT TV.
For Chemnitz, the match against Oldenburg is the start of a demanding double match day. Just 48 hours after the Bundesliga duel with the EWE Baskets, Saxony’s best basket hunters are already waiting for the Champions League game against BAXI Manresa, which will also take place in the trade fair and for which numerous tickets are still available. Before Richter, Lansdowne, Garrett and Co. want to rehabilitate themselves against the Spaniards for the bitter slap two weeks ago, all concentration is on the comparison with Oldenburg. Last season they were able to beat Lower Saxony twice; the year before, both duels went to the Baskets. The NINERS also suffered their heaviest Bundesliga defeat to date in 2020 against Oldenburg (73:119), but in the following years they increasingly closed the gap to the long-term North German playoff participants. Even though they can’t quite keep up with the Baskets financially, Chemnitz seems to be on a level playing field again this season and of course wants to prove this on Sunday. The NINERS can make full use of their personnel and be assured of the support of their loyal and loud fan base. With their own support behind them, the defense in particular should be even better than in many previous encounters, while the offensive focus is on teamwork. The Chemnitz team has recently shown clear progress here, but has sometimes not been able to utilize its potential consistently enough.
In order to defeat Oldenburg, however, it will require a consistently highly concentrated performance, as the Lower Saxony team is already of a different caliber in terms of sport than most recently, for example, Göttingen or Rostock. Above all, the guard rotation around Geno Crandall (16.3 points per game), Justin Jaworski (15.7) and Len Schoormann (11.3) can pose big problems for any opponent with their scoring power. Under the boards, Artur Konontsuk (12.3), Mathis Dossou-Yovo (9.0), the newly signed Aleksandar Zecevic (4.2) and 2.18 meter giant Norris Agbakoko (3.0) bring plenty of size and physicality, while Seth Hinrichs (9.0), Kyle Rode (4.8) and Alen Pjanic (4.5) pose a lot of danger from the wing. However, it remains to be seen whether the seventh foreign player, US guard Eli Brooks, who shone in Italy last year and scored an average of 8.5 points in four competitive games for Oldenburg at the start of the season, will be used. “Minister of Defense” Max DiLeo has been back in the Oldenburg rotation for three weeks now after recovering from an injury and will primarily want to bring in his defensive qualities under the new coach Mladen Drijencic. How the coaching change will affect the Baskets’ style of play after a week in office will become clear on Sunday. Drijencic coached the Oldenburg Bundesliga team from 2015 to 2022 and then served as head coach in Bayreuth for around a year. Afterwards he was active again in the EWE Baskets youth team, knows the entire organization like the back of his hand and should hardly need any time to get used to it. The NINERS certainly have to be prepared for one or another tactical realignment of Oldenburg, but they want to concentrate on their own strengths and, with a win, could be a real “big point” in this season’s incredibly exciting and evenly balanced race for the BBL playoff places land.
