|
|
The Club Scene: CEZ Basketball Nymburk
|
  Win or lose in its last regular season game, Czech Republic champion CEZ Basketball Nymburk can already claim unconditional success in its first ULEB Cup season. When Nymburk hosts former ULEB Cup champ Dynamo Moscow on Tuesday, it will be noteworthy for a couple reasons. First, more than 8,000 fans are expected, marking the second time this season that Nymburk breaks the record attendance for a Czech team - club or national - playing before home crowds. Second, those fans can realistically hope for an upset. Even though it entered the season with a roster almost empty of ULEB experience, Nymburk still could finish second in a group that also has a recent Euroleague finalist, Beghelli Bologna, and recent ULEB Cup quarterfinalist, Red Star. Nymburk's magic season is no accident. It's great basketball is the fruit of a serious organization that has improved with regular, ambitious steps and can now claim to be bringing glory days back to Czech basketball.
"Not to sound cocky, but from the beginning of the season, we wanted to present ourselves as ambassadors of Czech basketball," former Euroleague and NCAA champion Jiri Zidek, the club's media director and assistant general manager, said.. "And we wanted to invite the Czech Republic to our games. Now, if you go into the parking lot of our arena, you'll see buses from Moravia and West Bohemia, places three and four hours away, that fill up with fans to come see us play. That makes us feel great!"
 Even when Nymburk seems brand new to European competition, its roots go back to almost 80 years, making it one the oldest club in the Czech Republic's top division and one of the ULEB Cup's oldest clubs this season. It was founded with a women's team in 1930, but by 1936 Nymburk briefly played in the Czechoslovakian first division with players like Jan Sejbal or Josef Pospisil. The club changed its name a couple times before taking on Lokomotiva Nymburk from 1950, when it played in the second division, until 1948. Miroslav Knitl, Joseph Rylich and Joseph Andrle, who would later become a member of the FIBA technical comission, would be key figures for the club in those years.
Lokomotiva's march to the top of Czech after decades of obscurity began in 1995 , when one of its former players, Dr. Miroslav Jansta, became club president and set the goal of lifting the club into the Czech first division as quickly as possible. Nymburk climbed to the third division in 1997 and by 2000 had won the second and advanced to the top-flight Czech League (NBL) with players like Petr Novak, Martin Paur, Mlade Boleslavi, Pavel Bacik and Steve Tomas. As a first-division newcomer, Nymburk survived its debut season in 10th place, then began moving up the ladder in each succesive season: third in 2001-02, second the next season, losing the finals 4-3 to then-defending champion Opava. Nymburk also debuted in Europe, first in the Northern European Basketball League and then in the FIBA Europe Regional Challenge Cup, finishing its regular season group with a respectable 3-3 with players like Ashante Johnson, Maurice Whitfield, Pavel Kubalek or 2.12-meter center Stanislav Votroubek.
With its eyes on glory, Nymburk re-signed its stars from that season, Johnson and Whitfield, and added Zidek, who in addition to his continental title with Zalgiris had been the first Czech to play for Real Madrid and in the NBA. "These people made me feel welcome and needed, so I decided to come home," Zidek said of his decision to join Nymburk. "I wanted to be the focal part of a team, too, after having always been just one of the guys on my other teams. Here I was interested in taking the role of a leader, and when I met Mr. Jansta, and saw the demeanor and enthusiasm they have, it persuaded me to come back home after 12 years on the road, living out of a suitcase. My wife is from here and we had two kids by then, so that played a role, too. I was ready to settle down."
 Nymburk completed its remarkable rise by coasting through the regular season and the playoffs to take the club's first title. Nymburk has successfully defended its title every season since, not only becoming the team to beat in the country, but dominating its local competition like few teams around the continent. Although it had dabbled in European competition with several FIBA Europe League appearances, the club's biggest step came with joining the ULEB Cup this summer, a step that Nymburk management had been pushing for. To be admitted to the ULEB Cup, Nymburk faced the need to find a bigger arena, which it did by moving its home games almost 70 kilometers away to Pardubice, where a new, 10,500 seat arena awaited. But with a Nymburk population of only 15,000 people, the challenge was how to get a homecourt advantage so far from home. The club worked on some novel ideas, including free same-day round-trip transportation to Pardubice on Czech railways for any fan who could show a Nymburk game ticket.
"We started with a lot of question marks and uncertainties," Zidek said, "but when 4,000 people came to the first game, we knew we were on the right track. We lost a heartbreaker in overtime to Red Star, but the fans who came left saying they were coming to the rest of the games. And the people I talked to who missed it said they had made the mistake of their lives and wouldn't miss another. We knew right away we'd have more people, and it went up to 6,000 against Panellinios, dropped of a bit for Oostende, but since we won on the road at Red Star, interest has exploded. People started calling left and right for tickets and we had 7,200 against Bologna. Never had so many people seen a Czech team play in our country. Starting at Christmas, people were calling for tickets to the Dynamo game."
Now, converted into a regional or national phenomenon, those people in the stands have been key to Nymburk's success on the floor, where the team is 3-1 at home since the first overtime loss, while registering big road wins at Red Star and Panellinios. Nymburk had improved its roster over the summer by landing some of the best Czech players such as Radek Necas and Petr Benda, as well as inking Blake Schlib and Arthur Lee to play alongside Monty Mack and star forward Radoslav Rancik.
 "Every player has stepped up his game to another level from last season or even from the beginning of this one," Zidek said. "Rancik is having a breakthrough year, and many teams around Europe are interested in him now, after seeing him do what he's been doing. Ladislav Sokolovsky, our captain and the national team captain, is having a great ULEB Cup season hitting, key baskets all the time. Monty Mack has elevated his game during the season to become our go-to guy in big situations. And we had a great addition three weeks before the ULEB Cup started with Arthur Lee. He has given us a lot of experience and calmness at point guard. He directs the team well and calms everyone down, which has been a big factor. The biggest thing is that the team built up self-confidence after that first game and believed they could compete and win in this competition. There's no big-time star. The guys play for each other, enjoy playing with each other and have each other's backs."
With a game to go, they are not yet assured a place in the elimination rounds, but in all practicality should make it, although a win against Dynamo would open the possibility of finishing second in Group F, something no one would have predicted prior to the regular season.
"We knew it was a big challenge, leaving our own gym and facing quality competition on a nightly basis, but we are happy, enthusiastic and moving forward," Zidek said. "It's all a step forward for us, even moving from our gym. We're able to get fans more involved and enjoying a show in a new 10,500-seat arena. We can give them the whole package of basketball entertainment better than in our own gym."
 Before Tuesday's game, Nymburk plans to remind its fans, too, of Czech basketball's great history by honoring players from two of the country's continental-level teams from the 1960s, as well as two legendary coaches, Lubos Dobry and Pavel Petora. Among nine players to be honored from the 1967-68 Slavia Prague team that won the Cup Winners' Cup is Zidek's father, who starred on the team. Three more players from Brno ZJS, which defeated Real Madrid in the Intercontinental Cup semifinals in 1969, will be honored. Even back then, however, Nymburk was not a potential giant like today. With only 15,000 people, it was known more as the Olympics training ground for national teams in the communist era than a town that could support its own club. Now, however, tiny Nymburk is carrying the flag for Czech basketball higher than any team has in at least a couple generations.
"For us, before the season, looking at our chances against Euroleague-level teams like Dynamo and Bologna, a team that has had great success in the ULEB Cup, like Red Star, another that had four or five quality seasons, like Oostende, and the fifth team in last season's Greek League, Panellinios - we knew we were going to be outmatched as far as the talent and financial possibilities of the team's were concerned," Zidek said. "We knew we had to come together for every game, play great team defense and get the fans behind us. One advantage at the beginning was that maybe other teams underestimated us a little. Not too many people know about Czech basketball or Nymburk. But then they come and see all our people in the stands and our results. Now they have to respect us."
|
|
Javier Gancedo, ULEBcup.com
|
 Print Send Share
|
|