By Cesare Milanti / info@eurohoops.net
Lifting the 2022-23 Basketball Champions League trophy in the sky of Malaga on May 14, Telekom Baskets Bonn saw the contribution of TJ Shorts, Tyson Ward, Jonas Falkenstein, Zach Ensminger, Michael Kessens, Sebastian Herrera, Karsten Tadda, Collin Malcolm, Javontae Hawkins, Leon Kratzer, Deane Williams, and Finn Delany.
Looking at the German team’s roster in the latest appearance within the competition – winning on the road in France against JDA Bourgogne Dijon -, nobody is left from that list. Let me be clearer: not a single name has remained with the club trying to continue on last year’s success. That’s why whatever the result will be, Roel Moors has already done a great job.
The Belgian head coach was chosen to be Tuomas Iisalo’s successor, and he considered that “an honor”. However, things weren’t going to be easy from the beginning. “I knew right away it was going to be very difficult to keep some guys from that team. We tried our best to have at least some continuity, but it was for various reasons impossible. With every job there’s pressure, and I like pressure so I have no problem with it”, he said in an interview with Eurohoops.
As said, this is a completely renovated side. “I respect unbelievably the work that Tuomas Iisalo did in Bonn, but I’m working with a new team. I don’t feel the pressure of having to prove something. The only pressure I have is to make this team play well, making it grow during the season. What happened in the last two years it’s something we should be proud of, working for this organization, but we don’t have anything to do with that success. We have to build our success”, Roel Moors stated.
To do so, you must be accustomed to the environment in which you’re working. And the 45-year-old head coach has been used to the level of the Basketball Champions League for quite some time now, back when Telekom Baskets Bonn wasn’t having successful runs in the European competition.
Close to celebrate the 2019 BCL at home in Antwerp
Once Spirou Charleroi’s veteran, Roel Moors decided to put an end to his playing basketball career in Antwerp, spending time there from 2009 to 2015. Transitioning to the bench wasn’t that difficult for him, remaining with the club as an assistant coach and then being promoted straight away in November.
After a few adjusting seasons, in 2018-19 the Antwerp Giants began their Basketball Champions League campaign from the qualification rounds, beating Cantù. They ended up in a stacked Group C – there was still the competition’s old format – with AEK, Hapoel Jerusalem, Brose Bamberg, Lietkabelis, JDA Dijon, CEZ Nymburk, and Montakit Fuenlabrada, making it to the next phase with a 7-7 record.
From then on, the miracle happened both in the Eight-Finals and in the Quarter-Finals, respectively getting over UCAM Murcia – and Nizhny Novgorod – with Kendrick Perry on board. Reaching the Final Four was something unprecedented and not anticipated at all, and the Belgian head coach was rewarded by being named Basketball Champions League Best Coach of the Year.
Playing it at home made it even better, despite losing in the Semi-Finals to Lenovo Tenerife, which won the first-ever edition of the Basketball Champions League. “The strength of that team is that I was able to sign multiple guys on two-year deals, we had a core of guys coming back for that second year with Paris Lee, Tyler Kalinoski, Dave Dudzinski, Ismael Bako, Hans Vanwijn. We had a nice core of guys returning for that second year, and Jae’Sean [Tate] was like a late addition”, Roel Moors recalled.
Yes, the same Jae’Sean Tate who went on to become an established role player in the NBA with the Houston Rockets. “[Tyler] Kalinoski came back in the preseason and got elbow problems, so we decided to add another guy, but there were no finances to add a guy for the whole year. We found a short-term deal with him to help us for two months, but the day he came in I understood he was something special”, the 45-year-old head coach remembered.
“Not just basketball, but the energy he brought to the gym immediately, even without touching the ball was amazing. From day one, I was talking to our president that it would be crucial to keep this guy for the season. After two or three games, the president was always in front of the bench, and after the games, I saw him smiling and shaking hands around: I knew my mission was accomplished, being able to sign him for the rest of the season. He was a big key for our success”, he said about the 28-year-old, who returned straight to the U.S. after his BCL campaign.
Seeing Jae’Sean Tate shine at the NBA level is great to see but isn’t a surprise to anyone that watched @BasketballCL or Antwerp giants circa 2018. Was only ever a question of role. players like Tucker blazed the trail. https://t.co/s3cye9K2DH
— Diccon Lloyd-Smeath (@DLScoaching) December 27, 2020
In front of 16.437 people in the Antwerp Arena, the team managed to overcome the odds and beat Brose Bamberg – built to win it all at the beginning of the season by recreating the Maccabi Tel Aviv backcourt composed of Tyrese Rice and Ricky Hickman -, writing history.
However, from then on the level of basketball within the country has been decreasing for quite some time, with also the Belgian national team – where Roel Moors works as an assistant – not being able to capitalize on the foundations posed years ago. “Overall I think the level of competition in Belgium in the last 5-10 years has decreased due to finances that are becoming less and less”, he said.
There’s also a half-full part of the glass. “The good thing is that more teams in Belgium are realizing that they have to invest a lot in their youth departments, and overall if you look at the Belgian youth teams the level is getting better and better. Looking at the Belgian national team, a couple of years ago they were all in the B Division and now they’re slowly moving up, which is big. We have some really interesting talented guys like Thij De Ridder and some others in college”, Roel Moors added.
While the female national team is living the golden era for Belgian basketball, led by one of the greatest European players ever in Emma Meesseman, there is still some work to do on the male side of things. “I think the future looks bright, the national team is also becoming more and more consistent every year, achieving or getting into that Europan championship at least, fighting for something more. The future of Belgian basketball looks good, but they should try to raise the level of the competition to keep the talented guys within the country for a little bit longer”, he commented.
Moving on with Roel Moors’ career, he collected the latest hardware to insert in his cabinet with Antwerp in 2019, joining the team he beat in that final for bronze in Belgium. Staying with Brose Bamberg for one season only, affected by the pandemic, he then moved to BC Gottingen, where he coached until Telekom Baskets Bonn’s call. In 2022-23, he led the team to the BBL Quarter-Finals.
A big reason why the purple club could go that far into domestic competition is related to Mark Smith, who entered the radar of some EuroLeague teams but ended up in Casademont Zaragoza, where he is delivering in both ACB and Europe Cup. “Great work ethic, I believed in him a lot because he brought so much to Missouri. I followed him during his senior year at Kansas State, and you could see the little things he did. What sets him apart is the rebounding for his position, which is pretty special”, he said.
His skill set is undeniably good. “The ability he has to make shots from almost anywhere on the court and the rebounding are two things that translate immediately to the highest level. He’s working on the rest, he has improved already during the season last year and he’s doing it even more with Zaragoza. He’s on a very good way to make big steps in his career”, Roel Moors added about Mark Smith. “He also has the right mindset. This is sometimes underestimated: there are many talented guys, but the ones who come every day to the gym with a plan, you can see it straight away”, he also said.
Taking the baton from the reigning champions
Alongside the players who had great showings in Antwerp, Paris Lee built such a great relationship with coach Roel Moors that decided to follow him in Bamberg in 2019-20. The same thing happened with Till Pape and Harald Frey, once in Gottingen and now playing the Basketball Champions League with Telekom Baskets Bonn. “I like to build connections with guys and I like to try finding those guys who are not on the radar yet”, he revealed.
Trying to draw a backcourt connection between Harald Frey and Paris Lee – two completely different players -, Roel Moors said they were both white flies on the market. “Paris Lee was playing mid-level college basketball, I was able to sign him immediately for two years in Antwerp. The first one was his rookie year, up and down. The second year he exploded and followed me to Bamberg. It’s a little bit the same with Harald Frey, who I found in the second division in Spain; he’s a very talented guy with surely a bright future ahead”, he commented on those two players.
Alongside the Norwegian playmaker, who is averaging 8.5 points and 5.8 assists so far in this year’s Basketball Champions League, there are a lot of new faces for the German team, such as Sam Griesel, Brian Fobbs, Thomas Kennedy, or – among others – Glynn Watson, who has been the team’s leading scorer in the competition thus far with 12.4 points per game.
“It’s difficult to highlight individual players. When I got here and I knew there was going to be nobody left, my priority was to find local players with quality. We succeded in the best way possible. It was already pretty late so to find quality Germans it’s a problem, but we did okay. Then I tried to recruit like I was recruiting in the past, trying to look for guys who have big upsides and who maybe are not there yet. Hopefully, we can have a little continuity and build together for a second year with many interesting guys”, Roel Moors said about the German club’s strategic plan ahead for future transfers.
Talking about what’s happening on the court, Telekom Baskets Bonn found themselves up despite all teams finishing with a 3-3 record. “We had an up and down first round. We had a very difficult game against Hapoel Holon, it was particular because we had to play at home without the crowd. And our fans are very important to us. They had two games earlier in the season and then stopped playing for obvious reasons, that was their first game and they surprised us a little bit with their defensive schemes, having creation problems on offense”, he first said about the clash with the Israeli side.
In the following four games, they had alternate wins and losses. “Then we had a really good game in Turkey against Bursaspor and a good one at home against Rio Breogan. At home against Bursaspor, we didn’t play good enough defense against a team with such individual talent, while in Spain we gave the game away. We were lucky to end up first, it was big for us not having games early in January”, Roel Moors honestly admitted, with eyes set on the next stage.
Getting to the Round of 16 in Group J with MHP Riesen Ludwigsburg, Galatasaray, and JDA Bourgogne Dijon, they’re now standing tall at 3-0, continuing on last year’s 6-0 unbeaten streak in such phase. “Our goal is to be in the Top 8, so we had to win home games. We did that with two good performances. Against Galatasaray we were the better team and also against Ludwigsburg it was closer than it should have been”, he proudly stated.
On the way back to Germany after the third straight win, this time against JDA Dijon, the Belgian head coach also revealed his impressions on holding the home side only to 62 points behind friendly walls. “It was a difficult game for us with a slow rhythm missing a lot of open looks. We were dominated on the boards for three quarters. Last quarter we rebounded better, and could create a better rhythm in the open court”, he said.
Finally, Roel Moors drew a comparison between the first years of the Basketball Champions League and what came up next, eight seasons in the making. “There was already big quality back then. During my campaign with Antwerp, looking at Bamberg it was a pretty stacked team with big names. The biggest difference now is the overall depth and strength of the league: it got so much better”, he admitted.
At the end of the day, the overall level of the Basketball Champions League has made a huge step up. “You only have quality teams. This is very interesting because it makes it a really fun competition: anybody can beat anybody. Looking at the top teams, Malaga is close to a EuroLeague team, looking also at their ranking in the ACB. There are many quality teams, and it makes the competition interesting. In the Round of 16, it’s all quality teams”, Telekom Baskets Bonn’s head coach commented.
😤 That’s caps lock 𝗗𝗘𝗙𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗜𝗡𝗚 in DEFENDING champs!
Telekom Baskets Bonn hold JDA Bourgogne Dijon to 62PTS in France to go to 3-0, one step closer to another Quarter-Finals! #BasketballCL pic.twitter.com/73SnPpyHWy
— Basketball Champions League (@BasketballCL) February 7, 2024
PHOTO CREDIT: Basketball Champions League