“The challenges and triumphs of the Würzburg basketball team: A look back at the Bauermann times and a glimpse into the uncertain future under Filipovski”

First of all, a memory of that January day in the training center of the Würzburg basketball team, a good five years ago. Dirk Bauermann sits at his desk and talks about the course of the season for his team. In Würzburg, the glass is always half empty, says Bauermann, and then formulates a sentence that makes even him, who usually speaks in a deliberate voice, a little louder. So Bauermann says: “Even if the glass is three quarters full, for many it is one quarter empty.”

If you want to understand the present and everything that is happening around the baskets, you should recall the Bauermann times. How he, the former national coach, opened up in Würzburg and talked about making the club a natural contender for the semi-finals of the playoffs. How the baskets called out big goals and strived upwards, but then gave in and landed back on the iron-hard ground.

Dirk Nowitzki, Maximilian Kleber – big names had their beginnings here

Times were different when the former national coach set the tone in the Zellerau district, but it helps to think back on how much the club has changed and how much he has learned. The pandemic has taught the Würzburg restraint because the virus brought the club to its knees and almost killed it.

How those responsible mastered this crisis, how they proceeded with sovereignty in these nerve-wracking times and how they finally even managed to create a spirit of optimism, all of this was extremely remarkable. The fact that the Baskets played in the playoffs until the last day of the season, although they were considered a relegation candidate before the first jump ball of the year, was primarily thanks to Sasa Filipovski, Bauermann’s successor.

A pan into the foyer of the Würzburg Hall, it’s Thursday evening last week, a good hour before midnight. The Baskets just lost 73-77 to Braunschweig, failing to qualify for the playoffs for the third time in their history. Filipovski, 48, isn’t making much progress because he’s being spoken to every few meters. A pat on the back here, a photo there. As Filipovski steps out of the hall into the foyer, the people who are still there even at this late hour clap. You know what they have at Filipovski that he it is who gives them the joy of basketball returned and – to pad it with some pathos – made wine out of water.

But how long will it be good? How long can the club play at this level without a big name sponsor?

Würzburg is a basketball city. Dirk Nowitzki grew up here, and Maximilian Kleber also threw his first baskets in this gym, which has long since fallen out of time, before he went to Bayern Munich and then to the NBA. In the game against Braunschweig, the hall announcer drops the two names to remind people who ran across the floor here before they achieved world fame. The crowd is magnificent, the fans themselves think it’s better than it has been for years, but the spirit of optimism alone, they know that at the club, won’t win games in the long run.

Coach Filipovski would like to stay, but the club is waiting for sponsorship promises – “time is against us,” says Managing Director Liebler

Because the Baskets admit that an almost seven-figure sum is still missing to set up an appropriate budget and a competitive team for the next season. How much is in question these days is also made clear by the fact that the league has linked the license to a “condition subsequent” that “comes from the financial area”, as Steffen Liebler says. The managing director does not hide the fact that Filipovski’s personal situation is also at stake in this context: “We have to create the framework conditions so that he sees his future in Würzburg.”

Finishing 11th is certainly not a bad thing for the club, but now it’s also about providing Filipovski with a powerful team. Liebler estimates the chances that the Slovenian will continue to work for Würzburg in the future to be “fifty-fifty”. “He makes absolutely realistic demands,” says the managing director, “but we can’t make any clear statements yet because we’re waiting for a lot of feedback from sponsors. So time is against us.” Filipovski would love to stay but ties his future to the squad. And this team, which unleashed the wave of enthusiasm this season, will no longer exist in this composition. Cameron Hunt is continuing his career in Italy, Stanley Whittaker is unlikely to be retained despite a current contract and other players will also leave the club.