The 2015 DODDS-Europe girls basketball championship tournament tips off Wednesday at sites around Wiesbaden, Germany, culminating with three divisional championship games Saturday. Here’s a look at the top contenders.
Division IRealignment has brought a new dynamic to DODDS-Europe sports this year. Where once the German powers spent their season fighting amongst themselves, with a wary eye pointed northward at Lakenheath, now the contenders come from all directions. The result is the deep and dangerous nine-team bracket that will begin to sort itself out Wednesday.
The addition of traditional Italian powers Naples and Vicenza, who joined SHAPE in making the leap from Division II, is the apparent game-changer. That was certainly true in the fall volleyball championship, when Naples pushed Wiesbaden to the absolute limit in the European championship match and Vicenza edged out legacy programs to make a deep run.
The Wildcat and Cougar basketball teams, however, might not be equipped for such a showing. Both enjoy gaudy regular-season records, but those resumes are exaggerated by predominantly lower-division competition and an unremarkable performance in January divisional contests.
Naples rattled off six wins to start the season, but ran into trouble when its new Division I rivals made the trip down from Germany late last month. The Wildcats edged last-place Vilseck 31-29 and took a discouraging 37-29 loss to middling Patch. A 39-38 loss to Vicenza on Feb. 7 didn’t help matters.
While that intracountry win was a boost, Vicenza too struggled against schools its own size. The Cougars fell to Patch 50-30 and barely beat Vilseck 27-26.
Further, Naples and Vicenza have plenty of company in the thick of the newly-populous Division I field. That group of mid-level contenders each had its moments this winter.
Lakenheath turned in an impressive 43-38 overtime win at Kaiserslautern in a 7-5 regular season. Patch looked strong on its Italy swing. Kaiserslautern notched a 31-29 upset of then-undefeated, albeit shorthanded, Wiesbaden.
But each of those teams was ultimately outclassed by the bracket’s two frontrunners, Ramstein and Wiesbaden.
While both teams distanced themselves from the rest of the divisional pack, Wiesbaden is the clear favorite of the two. The Warriors never lost and were hardly challenged when at full strength, and they retained enough of last year’s championship-winning core to make a postseason swoon unlikely.
Ramstein played Wiesbaden tough when the two met on Jan. 30-31, taking respective losses of 39-28 and 36-33. From this view, the Royals might be the only major obstacle to a title that is looking like the Warriors’ to lose.
Division IIThe two biggest contenders in Division II got the postseason off to a de facto early start in the final weekend of the regular season.
On Friday, Bitburg edged defending European champion Black Forest Academy 31-27, a confidence-boosting win in which the Barons turned the tables on the vaunted BFA defense by holding the Falcons to a single second-quarter point.
But the Falcons weren't entirely grounded. On Saturday, BFA responded with a 41-36 win to split the doubleheader and negate any attempts at determining a Division II favorite entering the tournament.
Instead, the bracket of mid-sized DODDS-Europe schools opens as it usually does, in spite of the realignment: with a small handful of teams capable of laying claim to the trophy but equally vulnerable to skipping Saturday entirely.
In addition to Bitburg and BFA, count Aviano, AFNORTH, Hohenfels and American Overseas School of Rome among that group. Each has shined at times this winter, often at another's expense: Hohenfels took Bitburg to overtime on Feb. 7 and beat Aviano in January; AOSR edged Hohenfels 41-40; Aviano twice routed AOSR in the season's opening weekend; and AFNORTH comes in with a robust 10 victories.
Struggling squads from Ansbach, Marymount and Rota round out the Division II bracket.
Division IIINone of the six entries in this year’s small-school bracket will enter the tournament with a winning overall DODDS-Europe record. Some will enter without any DODDS-Europe games to their name since last year’s tournament. That’s a recipe for unpredictability.
Based on history, Brussels and Sigonella are the teams to beat. The two stalwart contenders played for last year’s title, with Brussels winning 38-31 in overtime.
But the bulk of that Brigand team has moved on, leaving an unproven young squad that sank in the standings. Sigonella fared better in the regular season, including a split with Aviano, but the Jaguars’ overall talent level took a similar hit.
It’s bad timing for the Brigands and Jaguars to have down years. Realignment shuffled Alconbury and Baumholder back down to the Division III level, and each should be a tough out this week. In fact, both proved it with two regular-season wins apiece over Brussels.
Alconbury holds the edge in a potential meeting with Baumholder. The Dragons finished up with an even .500 record that included a win over Division I SHAPE and two wins each over divisional rivals Brussels and Baumholder.
Twitter: @broomestripes
