BBL relegation sealed, but…
The deep fall of ex-champion Frankfurt
4/20/2022, 9:46 p.m
With Gießen’s defeat against Braunschweig, the relegation of Frankfurt’s basketball players is finally complete. The former champion and cup winner has had a tough year. Despite the sporting relegation, the Hessians are trying to get a first division license.
The basketball players from Fraport Skyliners Frankfurt had to watch idly as their relegation from the Bundesliga was sealed. With the 82:66 (49:41) victory of the Basketball Löwen Braunschweig at the Gießen 46ers, the Hessians are sure of a difficult transition to the second division. With three games left, Frankfurt can no longer leave the relegation zone. In Gießen, David Krämer (14), Owen Klassen (13) and Nicholas Tischler (11) were the most successful throwers for Braunschweig, who secured their place in the league with the win. In the 46ers, Kendale McCullum stood out with 19 points.
For the team from the Main metropolis – after all champions in 2004 and cup winners in 2000 – it is the low point of a thoroughly sobering season. Before their own victory in Oldenburg on Monday, they had lost six in a row, so far in the 2022 calendar year there have only been three wins. And the remaining games against the local rivals from Gießen, who are also threatened with relegation, as well as Crailsheim and Bayreuth are now meaningless.
How things will continue for the Hessians is open. After the club had kept the step open for a long time, it became known on Tuesday that the Skyliners are trying to get a first division license despite the sporting decline. You are one of 22 candidates. The decision on approval should be made in early May, according to the basketball Bundesliga. A lot is likely to change in terms of personnel and the squad. Diego Ocampo, the eternal assistant Klaus Perwas and currently Luca Dalmonte were allowed to try their hand at coaching this season. However, the success never came.
Even before the final end in the evening, the hopes of the Skyliners were only theoretical. After the defeat at the Hamburg Towers, relegation could hardly be prevented in the previous week. Only complicated arithmetic games and three-way comparisons could have saved the Hessians from the extremely uncomfortable and feared fall into the second division. Just six years ago, the Frankfurters were crowned winners of the Fiba Europe Cup – now, of all things, after two financially very difficult years of the pandemic, the biggest setback followed.