A mediocre basketball night in Frankfurt

[by Kris SANTIAGO] - After a stressful day at the office, me and my girlfriend decided to give the Skyliners (The local first division basketball team over here) another shot.
Headed into their tenth anniversary of existence, the previous German champions are far away from their best days in the league.

After last year's surprising performance with a qualification for the German semis, this year's squad will be having a hard time to achieve the same result as they are currently
only placed 13th in the league while competing in the third-string European club competition called "Euro Challenge Cup".
With that in mind, my expectations for the game against Ukrainian's visitors from Nikolayev were very low.

Arriving at the gym, we had no trouble finding a spot for the car so it was clear, that not too many fans would be attending the game.
At the "Ballsporthalle", I met the usual suspects like fellow players, fans or coaches that want to see some international hoops around town without traveling too much.

After taking a seat we were able to watch the opening ceremony with the cheerleaders and a phony MC introducing the local players to the die-hard fans that were attending.

The match went down without any real entertaining highlights but with a solid display by the likes of Pascal Roller and Ilian Evtimov who both showed a decent perimeter game to edge MBC 76-70.
The Skyliners previously won the first leg in Nikolayev after an adventurous ride through the Ukraine (Their bus has been escorted by police on their four-hour trip to Nikolayev after arriving late at the airport of Odessa) and repeated their success this time at home, also thanks to a solid all-around game of former-'Cane Anthony King.

The La Ola-wave with the few people around was somehow entertaining while it was interesting to see how easy you can rip a Nike-shirt off a body, as both Evtimov and King had to fix and even change their jerseys during the match (King came back into the game with "50" instead of his "8" as they did not have his jersey in stock).Someone at Nike may need to check their game-jerseys these days. They should hire Hulk Hogan to do the job...

Frankfurt has been winless in the last years in Uleb-Cup play but should be looking to improve their record in the weakest of all European competition this year.
Next opponent is Antalya, so the trip to Turkey won't be as difficult as the last one, while the competition will be with Marcus Douthit, Michael Green and Victor King in the opponent's roster.

I might be attending the home-game against the Turkish-side too, if I can find some time, as it maybe going to be a bit more thrilling:

- The Turkish community in Frankfurt is quite large. Someone has to tell them to come to the game. If it happens, expect an away-game for Frankfurt and loud cheers throughout the game.
- Antalya is commonly known to Germans as they are spending their vacations over there. Nikolayev is known to...Ukrainians...maybe.
- It's again a do-or-die game as the winner qualifies for the first round of the competition.
- Nike may fly in Hulk Hogan to test the shirts in front of the attendance.

I'm out like bare bodies.