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Krunic knows his former team well

Bayreuth coach won the title with Oldenburg in 2009, and beat the current vice-champions in April with his present team. Ronald Burrell and Bryan Bailey will be facing former teammates as well.

Bayreuth cannot be particularly displeased after four rounds. They won half the games, the two home ones, while losing the two away. The Munich defeat was particularly painful, but Bayern are a tough team to play against these days. The impression was that Bayreuth players themselves did not believe that they could do something. They somehow held on for the first 20 minutes, only for it all to go down hill in the second part of the game. They lost the third quarter with -18 points, with their opponents scoring over 100 points total... The Bavarian team shot 10/15 three pointers and had 13 more rebounds. Coach Predrag Krunic once again used only eight players.

-We lost control of the game in the third quarter. We made mistakes and Bayern scored from counterattacks- described Krunic the events of the match, and quickly put behind him the away game in Bavaria to turn towards a new challenge.

Matches vs Oldenburg are a special event for this expert, and no wonder, as he coached that team for a long time, even winning the title with them in 2009. He is quite familiar with most of the players opposing his team today.

Since Bayreuth entered the first league, they had only one home defeat to Oldenburg, three years ago, and they still remember it well, as it was achieved in the last second of the game. For the last two seasons they came out as winners. With Krunic leading them, Bayreuth managed to beat the current vice-champions of the league in April this year.

-Oldenburg are a strong team who play very good team basketball. They are especially good on the offense, with numerous experienced players. We must try to use our chances, which are primarily on defense, clearly. Offensively, our opponents are very, very powerful- said Krunic.

Other than for him, the Oldenburg game will be special for power forward Ronald Burrell and guard Bryan Bailey too, as they used to wear the yellow jersey. Burell is so far one of the best scorers in the league, and a player who might be the key factor today. Physically, he is certainly more powerful than any power forward on Oldenburg's roster, and if he plays his best, the away team will have to close in on the paint, which would leave a lot of room for the home team's guards.

The appearance of power forwards Phillipp Heyden and Tom Spöler for the home team is still in question, and they have been missing since the season started.

Oldenburg have played three games in the championship so far, winning all three, so their only defeats so far have been in European matches. They were badly beaten by the Italian Sassari on Wednesday. Oldenburg are known for their usually convincing home performances, but nothing seems to have worked for them that day. They were at -16 after the first quarter, and -25 by halftime. Their defense was practically non-existant, and Sassari are known to play run-and-gun baskeball. The Italians scored 14 three pointers, and it is difficult to lose when you have such an evening.

-It is hard to win when you allow the opponent to score 96 points. We were unable to impose defensive pressure, and horribly slow on transitional defense in the first half, which led to numerous easy points our opponents scored from counterattacks. They love to play a quick game, and we allowed that- said coach Sebastian Machowski.

The best individuals among them were guard Chris Kramer and power forward Nemanja Aleksandrov with 16 points each. Their best scorer Julius Jenkins failed them utterly.

The guest team still cannot count on their injured center Adam Chubb.

So far Bayreuth showed that they're an excellent home team and they didn't dwell too much on their conclusive loss against Bayern in the previous round. Bavarians were clearly a better team and Bayreuth players were pacing themselves a little. That won't be the case today. They're playing against Oldenburg , who traditionally don't do well in Bayreuth's arena. They've won only one match there in the last three years and that was in the final second three years ago. We shouldn't put too much emphasis on that, of course, but the fact is that Bayreuth coach Predrag Kunic won the championship title with Oldenburg and he knows that team well. He beat today's opponent in April and he had a much weaker team back then. Oldenburg is so far undefeated in the championship, but last weekend at home against Trier they showed a lot of weaknesses and they played very poor defense on Wednesday against Sassari. Bayreuth should have the upper hand at paint. Former Oldenburg player Burrell is a dominant figure under the hoop, they're a typical home team and I think they might have a chance to win this match.