Ty Harrelson’s men showed just how much they have changed since losing to Istanbul team by 33 points
Ulm keeps rolling, showed its real self against Besiktas
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ratiopharm Ulm laid down a marker against Besiktas Fibabanka Istanbul in rolling to a 17-point home victory after losing their Round 4 matchup in Turkiye back in October by 33 points. Albeit in a game that Ulm had an entirely different mind frame.
On Thursday night, Ulm extended its winning streak to five games by beating Besiktas 104-87 in a critical game in the fight for a top-two spot in Group A. Ulm continued to shine with its high-octane offense, having scored at least 100 point for the third straight game and improved to a 9-4 record.
“It’s nice to go out of 2024 with a victory. Also the fact that we lost really badly in Istanbul against what I think is a very good basketball team. I think we played really well today. Maybe one of our best performances,” said Ulm head coach Ty Harrelson, whose team dished out 28 assists and shot 54.5% on three-pointers.
Ulm dropped the Round 4 game in Istanbul 107-74 for its first EuroCup loss of the season. But that was the third game of a six-game road trip for Ulm which the team travel 25,000 kilometers over a 15-day period.
The EuroCup game at Besiktas came on the Monday following Ulm’s heart-breaking buzzer-beater 103-100 loss in the German Cup to Bamberg on Saturday, October 12. The first Besiktas game was also two days before the young Ulm team would play in a high-profile exhibition game against the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers in the United States. So, it wouldn’t be a shock if some of those Ulm players were already thinking about the honor of playing on an NBA court.
Ulm’s first road game in that stretch was at Wolves Twinsbet Vilnius in Round 3 and the remaining road contests came against Oldenburg in the German League and at Dreamland Gran Canaria in Round 5, when Ulm gave up a EuroCup-record 125 points.
Coming back to its home game on Boxing Day, Ulm also had what could be considered a road game as the Besiktas fans were louder than the home supporters for large parts of the contest.
“This atmosphere was amazing. The Besiktas fans put on a great show, but also our fans were ready to come and celebrate basketball today,” said Ulm guard Thomas Klepeisz, who scored a season-high 15 points. “I fed off that energy and it was a lot of fun to play basketball today.”
Besiktas head coach Dusan Alimpijevic tried to warn his players against thinking about the home win back in October.
"I told them forget about this first game and this 33-point win. I told them this is a completely different team. This is a completely different approach. And we didn’t exist today,” Alimpijevic said.
Ulm now holds a two-game lead over Besiktas – 9-4 to 7-6 – in the group, but Harrelson admitted he and the team was thinking about the tiebreaker.
“I was telling the guys, we want to get the head-to-head. (Laughs). At some point they made a little run and it became apparent that would be really difficult to do without forcing stuff,” Harrelson said. “For most of the game we were very efficient with our offense. A couple of turnovers late led to some fast breaks so we couldn’t push it out to that type of score. Of course, that is what we would have liked to do but it just didn’t happen.”
The victory also meant a lot because Ulm had lost its last two games in the German League.
“It was an important game for our team today before a little bit of a break and New Year’s. I am just really proud of the group. 28 assists was the key. When we move the basketball, we are dangerous.”
Ulm certainly showed that in its final game of 2024 as the team looks ahead to 2025 with hopes of even further development.
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