Hello, Eurocup fans, I am Heiko Schaffartzik of Alba Berlin and back welcome to my blog! I last blogged in the Euroleague Qualifying Round and a lot - some good, some bad - has happened since then. We had a rough start to the season in the German League and could not reach the Euroleague. We bounced back by winning nine straight games and got a hold of ourselves. We did well in the Eurocup regular season, too, by winning five of our six games to get to the Last 16 as group champion. Since that moment, we have gone into a little bit of a slump. Both of our big men, Torin Francis and Yassin Ibdihi were - and still are! - injured. We lost some games because of this and were a bit unfortunate. We had chances to win all three games, but were not able to pull it off.

Our first Last 16 in Treviso was like a déjà vu. We played against them in the Last 16, Game 1 last season and also lost. It was tough to go back there and lose again. Everybody knows that when you start a new phase with a loss, it is always complicated to win the next one. As a team, this is something we must fight through in order to be successful. We had very good chances to beat Lokomotiv-Kuban and Lietuvos Rytas. We played very well for 33 minutes in Vilnius, but in the end, I wouldnt say we gave it away, but Rytas was too strong in the fourth quarter.

We have to be positive. First of all, we have mathematical chances to get to the next round and most important, our next two games are at home, in front of our great fans at the o2 World. It is a tough situation, but we feel we can still turn things around. That is what we are trying to focus on in the next three games. We know we... more