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The dream is over: MBC squanders European final

Weißenfels 22. April 2026 22:05 Uhr 3 Min
The dream is over: MBC squanders European final
Khyri Thomas (M) was the MBC's top scorer / Photo: Hendrik Schmidt/dpa
From: DieSachsen News
Led for a long time, then squandered everything: The MBC misses out on the European Cup final in its own arena. Outsider Manchester showed more bite against the Wolves.

Tristesse instead of triumph: The Syntainics MBC missed out on the final of the European North Basketball League and thus became the first German club to win a second European Cup. The Bundesliga club from Weißenfels was surprisingly beaten 86:89 (49:42) by Manchester Basketball in the semi-final in its own arena.

The team will now face CSO Voluntari in the small final on Thursday (5 p.m.) for third place. The defending champions from Romania had lost their semi-final just as unexpectedly by 80:87 against Dziki Warsaw. Weißenfels had suffered its only defeat against Voluntari in the league phase of the ENBL season so far.

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Thomas points not enough

This means that the Fiba Europe Cup won in 2004 remains the MBC's only international title. In the ENBL, they finished the league phase in first place with 7:1 wins and also mastered the quarter-finals with ease. The Final Four in their own arena was to be the highlight of the European Cup season.

Former NBA pro Khyri Thomas was the Wolves' top scorer against Manchester with 23 points. However, that did little to help in the end in front of 2,300 fans in the Stadthalle. The Wolves had led until the final phase of the encounter and at times had a clear double-digit lead.

Lead until shortly before the end

The team of Head Coach Milenko Bogicevic got off to a somewhat slow start, but gradually pulled away and led by double digits for the first time towards the end of the first quarter. Thomas and Spencer Reaves in particular were not able to get a grip on the visitors.

Weissenfels remained stable until the final phase of the second quarter, before the club from Manchester, which was only founded in 2024, closed the gap to four points. However, a hard-fought bucket by Nemanja Djurisic then gave them a comfortable half-time lead. It would have been the veteran from Montenegro's second triumph in the ENBL. Djurisic already won the trophy in 2023 with his former club Stal Ostrow Wielpolski.

The MBC took things too casually in the third quarter and Manchester closed the gap to three points. Bogicevic called a timeout - but the game remained close. Manchester then took the lead with just under three minutes remaining.

Copyright 2026, dpa (www.dpa.de). All rights reserved

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Topics :

Basketball ENBL Saxony-Anhalt Syntainics MBC Germany Weißenfels
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