The team of the German basketball champions from Freiburg wins the Bundesliga game against the newly promoted Berlin 80:69 – a very important victory for the ice birds from USC.
The German champions managed to repel the attack of the ambitious newcomer. In the first meeting of the women’s basketball league, USC Freiburg won the home game against Alba Berlin with 80:69 (18:16, 26:13, 14:28, 22:12). With their second win of the season, the Kingfishers leveled with the promoted team from the capital on points.
Alba Berlin has met with USC several times
It’s not that the basketball teams of both clubs have never met in their history: it was only the case for the men. The USC side played Alba during their two-year tenure in the first Bundesliga in 1997/98 and 1998/99. And in spring 2015, the Berlin U18s made it to the youth cup finals of the top four teams in Breisgau.
The Alba selection won the title, but the USC juniors were almost eye level at the time. She narrowly missed out on the final with a 71:72 win against Bayern Munich, finished third and provided the tournament’s top scorer for Niklas Osaby. But that was seven and a half years ago—and he’s just settled into the sport of men’s basketball.
So now the game between USC Freiburg and Alba Berlin has been scheduled for the first time in the women’s first division. Harald Janson, sports director of the Eisvogel and pioneer for equal treatment of women and men in sport, had said before the game in relation to the Alba: “This is the most promising project of German women’s basketball in the last 30 years”.
Professional and financially strong
A big city, a large selection of players, inclusion in the general club and the use of administrative possibilities in the club named after a waste management company – all this makes the Alba women’s project so special .
Four examples illustrate the professionalism of the organisation: The team took the train to Freiburg and allowed themselves a total of two overnight stays. Given the Kingfishers’ limited budget, Janson said: “If we were away twice, I wouldn’t be able to sleep for two months.” The opportunity to train on the morning of match day, the request for catering facilities close to the hall and the contact with a photographer who was supposed to fill the Alba homepage with current match photos were almost planned with military precision.
Eight Berliners are under the age of 20
On the field, however, the German champions (still) manage to repel the onslaught of the promoted team. Ten of his 18-strong squad have played for Alba since their youth. It is a percentage by which the club reaches almost the same size as USC Freiburg. The fact that eight of Berlin’s players are under the age of 20 was evident in the team’s style of play on Saturday night – and it wasn’t to the team’s advantage.
Again and again, the oft-used tactic in the youth academy with its sometimes severe differences in body size was to play the ball under the basket in the women’s center. The players of the promoted team could not resist this temptation. However, it was a trap for Eisvogel, who forced the opponent into difficult two-point shots or blocked him because the available space was closed at the last moment by the Freiburg team.
Victor Herbosa now wants to take advantage of the break
Then the Albatross turned around after the break and went for the three-pointer. It worked better. And if Deeshyra Thomas had converted both free throws instead of just one with a second left in the quarter, it would have been a tie in the final ten minutes of the game. In those, the Kingfishers extended their narrow lead (58:57) right off the bat with a 9:0 run. It was the preliminary decision for USC, whose experienced players around the American Christa Reed kept their nerve in critical situations and then scored important points.
USC head coach Victor Herbosa was happy with the game and the win. Since there is now a break due to an international match and USC has the next day off due to the odd number of teams, the next match will not take place until December 4th – at home against the Nördlingen team, against which the Freiburg women were eliminated in the cup. “By then, we want to have eliminated the deficits that hampered us at the start of the season due to multiple injuries through good training,” said Herbosa.
USC Freiburg has played with: Nufer 10 points/of which 1 three, Rasenberger, Wagner 8/2, Little 12, Loera 5/1, Gerlinger, Reed 28/4, Paunovic 10, Mayer 7/1.
