David Teague And The Gießen 46ers Are Slowly Crawling Out Of The BBL Cellar

David Teague is a 26 year old 196cm guard who is an athletic wing player who possesses an excellent perimeter shot, is a solid penetrator who can get to the basket off the dribble and is a tenacious defender who can shut down dribble penetration. He grew up in Indianapolis and went to Pike high school and at Bridgeton Academy. He played at Purdue from 2002-2007. In his senior year, he played 34 games averaging 14.3ppg, 5.0rpg, 2.0apg, FGP: 44.0%, 3Pts: 41.2%, FT: 75.4% .

In his first professional season, he played in Greece for AEL 1964 playing 23 games averaging 9.7ppg, 3.5rpg, 2FGP: 48.0%, 3PT: 32.0%, FT: 78.0%. Last season, he played in France for JA Vichy Val d’Allier Auvergne basket playing 4 EuroChallenge games: averaging 8.8ppg, 4.0rpg, 1.8spg and playing 29 games in the French League averaging 13.8ppg, 3.6rpg, 1.3spg, FGP: 42.7%, 3PT: 30.9%, FT: 73.4%.

This season, he is playing for the Gießen 46ers and is currently leading the BEKO BBL in scoring with 22,3ppg, 5,2rpg and 1,4spg. He spoke with German Hoops about the turn around in the play of The Gießen 46ers.

Congrats on beating the 2009 BEKO BBL champion EWE Baskets Oldenburg 78-73. If you compare their talent with the talent from Gießen, is it there such a big difference?

I think from the individual talent, Oldenburg has the best in the league from top to bottom. They have so many guys that can score in so many different ways. Adding Josh Carter has made them much deeper. Not having Jason Gardner hurts them, but they are still very strong and even playing without key players they are as strong as any team in the league. Getting Bryan Bailey was a good pick up. He is very solid. He did a good job running the team even if it might not always have been easy against our defensive pressure or us taking away their initial passes. We made them work for everything, but it was still amazing the type of individual plays that they made.

Do you think that The EWE Baskets Oldenburg underestimated The Gießen 46ers?

Maybe they did, especially when a top team is playing a team at the bottom then that can happen. I think that they came to play and had something to prove after their loss in Athens in the Euroleague last week. They still started strong, defended tough and denied our passes and played like a top team. We weren´t bale to withstand their defensive pressure as well, but that changed in the second half.

The EWE Baskets Oldenburg had the 39-33 lead at halftime, but you guys stormed back in the second half and won. What were the reasons for the win?

I think that our strong start in the third quarter was the key. We have been doing this in the last few games not letting the opponent run away with the game in the third quarter. With our strong starts, it helps us stay in the game long enough to be able to compete and then have a chance to win at the end, which happened against Artland and Oldenburg.

You had Johannes Lischka back. Was he the missing piece to the success against The EWE Baskets Oldenburg?

Yes I think that he was. The game against Oldenburg helped him bounce back form his return against Artland. Last week, he was in the gym extra long working hard and he looked a lot better on the court and with him on the court, that gives the team an advantage and added depth. His energy and toughness is very necessary for our game and to have success.

The team had a lot of support from guys like Jannik Freese, Stevan Taposkovic and Martin Kohlmaier. Is the team starting to believe that they can win on a regular basis now?

I think that the team believes that they can win more especially since the win against The Artland Dragons. Many of the players have added confidence not only in winning, but also in their own games. The most important thing is that the players have confidence in themselves before others do in them. The team is starting to believe that they can play at a high level and we will continue to improve. I hope that Martin Kohlmaier continues to have confidence and play well. I feel that we can continue to step up in this league and compete with the best teams in the league.

Even if you were not a big factor against The EWE Baskets Oldenburg with 9 points on 4/18 shooting, are you still happy that the team got so much support from other guys?

I am very happy that other guys stepped up. I am a big competitor and I hate to lose no matter if I score 100 points, 50 points or 0 points. I would rather sacrifice points in order to get a great team win. For me to struggle and then still win against a great team like Oldenburg speaks volumes about the character of the team. Even if I am not scoring then I still try to help in other ways by helping on defense or making the extra pass to help the team win. It is not all about scoring and the guys know that I want to win very bad.

The Giessen 46ers have won 3 of the last 4 games and beat two top clubs with Artland and Oldenburg. How has coach Vladi Bogojevic handled the success and treated the team in terms of motivation?

Coach Bogojevic has been the same really. This may sound crazy, but I think that there is no one outside our team that believes how good we really are. I have been saying all along that The Giessen 46ers have been a team a few plays away from being a 8-3 team instead of a 3-8 team. But the weirdest things happen in basketball and one can´t always control injuries. We had problems not having Lorenzo Williams and Johannes Lischka out with injuries and getting Mo Jeffers and Austen Rowland so late. That was all out of our control and we took some loses. The season so far has been a big learning experience. The motivation and preparation remains to be the same from the coach and he continues to believe in us and he stresses to play defense first and then to execute as best as possible on offense. We believe in him as a coach and we try to carry out his game plan as best as possible and continue to play as good as possible.

What was it like playing against Rickey Paulding? Could you learn something from him?

Ricky Paulding is so tough. He never stops coming at you and he can hurt you in so many ways. He comes at you attacking and he is so difficult to stop on the dribble. He took this one crazy shot dribbling through his legs a few times where I was in his face and he still made the shot. I respect him so much. When you have such a talented guy on such a talented team, then that makes him so much more dangerous. It was fun playing against him. It was a real challenge. You can really watch as much film as possible of Paulding, but nothing is the same as seeing him live on the court. I guarded him and also Je’Kel Foster. This was the toughest game for me this season in terms of guarding them and trying to score points. My body is still hurting 24 hours later.

You next play two away games in Tuebingen and Braunschweig. What are the biggest pluses of the team currently and what does the team still have to work on?

The biggest plus at the moment is out confidence which must be at an all time high at the moment. At the moment, we believe that we can beat anyone.as long as we stay focused and stick to the game plan. We have to execute better on offense, because we tend to be up and down on offense. We lose patience as a team, but I also am very guilty of losing patience and rushing things at times. We are executing better on offense though. We can get better on defense as we are missing rotations and not boxing out properly, but we are playing tough on defense. We may not be the best individual team, but when we play tough as a team, then we can beat anyone. We have to stay consistent now and keep winning and keep the winning streak alive.

What was the last DVD that you saw?

It was a throw back to 1994. “Murder was the case” with Snoop Doggy Dog.

Thanks David! Good luck in the next games!