Immediately after the bitter end with Bayern Munich in the play-off semifinals of the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL), coach Andrea Trinchieri announced his departure. “I think it was my last game during my time at FC Bayern,” said the 54-year-old late on Friday evening at MagentaSport.
This was preceded by the 102:104 (92:92, 43:46) after extra time at ratiopharm Ulm, it was Bayern’s third defeat in the third game of the best-of-five series. The runner-up failed with 0:3 on the seventh of the main round.
Trinchieri took over the team in 2020 and also celebrated successes: Munich won the German Cup in 2021 and this year, and in 2021 and 2022 the club was the first German representative to make the EuroLeague play-offs. The German championship title, which he had already won three times with Brose Bamberg, was no longer granted to Trinchieri with Munich: in 2021 and 2022 the Italian and his team failed in the final at Alba Berlin.
“I would have liked to have finished differently here,” said Trinchieri, looking back on the current season, “but we had a lot of adversities. When we had the whole team together, we won the trophy – but we almost never had the whole team together. These Players deserve a lot more because they work very hard.”
Ulm, on the other hand, had already defeated champions Alba Berlin (3-1) in the quarter-finals, and as seventh in the main round, the club surprisingly made it into the final. Ulm has already achieved this feat twice in its history (1998 and 2016). In any case, the last series of the season will be contested by two teams that have never been German champions: In the other semi-final are the MHP giants Ludwigsburg and the Telekom Baskets Bonn, the Rhinelanders lead 2-0 and can on Saturday (8 p.m./ Magenta Sport) in Ludwigsburg buy the final ticket.
The runners-up from Munich had initially lost both of their home games, in Ulm he gave up the first quarter (22:29) – but then worked his way up to the third period, the momentum now seemed to speak for Bayern. However, there followed a 10:0 run by Ulm, which lasted until the final section. Bayern coach Andrea Trinchieri took a break, “doing the little things,” he called out to his players.
At first, Ulm even pulled away, already leading by 16 points, but then allowed themselves numerous turnovers. Bayern used this to run 13-0 and took the lead for the first time in the game a good two minutes before the final siren (88-87). The highly dramatic final phase led to overtime, in this phase Ulm’s Bruno Caboclo became the most important man. With 22 points at the end, he was the hosts’ best thrower. Cassius Winston (22) and national player Andreas Obst (19) stood out for Bayern.