Alba Berlin 2008-09, team profile
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 Good times are back for basketball fans in the German capital as Alba Berlin returns to the Euroleague after four seasons away and the city looks forward to hosting next spring's 2009 Euroleague Basketball Final Four. Alba Berlin has been the the most dominant teams in German basketball over the past generation. The club won seven straight German League crowns between 1997 and 2003. Now, after a short dry spell, Berlin is again the German champion and planning to make some noise again on the European scene. Alba's climb to greatness goes back to 1995, when it became the first German team to win a European trophy, in this case the Korac Cup. Sasa Obradovic, Teo Alibegovic and head coach Svetislav Pesic led Alba to that first crown. That success catapulted the club to its run of seven straight German League titles and earned the club a regular spot in the Euroleague, with players like Wendell Alexis, Henrik Rodl and Marco Pesic playing major roles in the dynasty. Twice during a four-year span Alba even reached the Euroleague quarterfinals only to lose to the competition's eventual runner-up. Alba would continue to be a dangerous opponent in years to come, though it never found the recipe to get through to the Top 16. In 2003-04, Alba showed that it could compete with some of the biggest teams in Europe on many nights, beating powerful Tau Ceramica and Efes Pilsen in Berlin, but its Euroleague season ended bitterly, with five losses in the final six games and a seventh-place finish in its regular season group. Alba's amazing streak of German League titles came to an end in 2004 when it was bounced in the semifinals by GHP Bamberg.
2007-08 RESULTS | ULEB Cup | | German League | R. Season | 27-7 | Playoffs | Champion | Cup | Semis |
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Alba then began a run of four successive seasons in the ULEB Cup, though it narrowly missed the elimination rounds, losing out in a tiebreaker in each of the last two seasons. Alba took part in one of that competition's most exciting games ever, a five-overtime 141-127 win over KK Bosna in December 2007. Back in Germany, Alba finished the regular season atop the standings in 2006 and 2007 and won the German Cup title in 2006, downing Bamberg in the final. It wasn't until last season, however, when the dynamic backcourt of Julius Jenkins and Bobby Brown came together with a veteran frontline featuring Patrick Femerling, Goran Nikolic and Aleksandar Nadjfeji to help the Berliners reclaim the German League title. Its timing could not have been better, with the Final Four coming to Berlin at the end of the 2008-09 season. As Germany's flagship club in Europe, Alba is ready to show its Euroleague rivals why the future is now for basketball in Berlin.
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Euroleague.net
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