The 1972/73 season is the seventh season of the Basketball Bundesliga . The top division in German men's club basketball, which until 1990 was limited to the territory of West Germany without the GDR , was played in two regional groups, north and south, each with eight teams.
In two regional groups, north and south, eight teams each determined the eight participants in the intermediate round , for which the four first placed in the two groups were qualified. The two most recently placed clubs in the two groups were relegated from the basketball league. Tied game results after the end of the regular playing time in a game were included in the evaluation and there was no extension of the playing time to determine a winner.
In the intermediate round, two teams from a regional group played again in a round-robin mode according to the placements in the main round. The teams placed "oddly" met the teams placed " evenly " in the other regional group. The two teams placed first in an intermediate round formed the four semi-finalists. There the finalists and then the German champions were determined in the knockout system by adding the first and second leg . If it was a draw after adding the first and second legs, the playing time was now extended by five net minutes until a winner was determined at the end of one extra time.
Season Notes
Relegated from the basketball league this season were SGN Essen / RuWa Dellwig and ASV Köln in the north and BC Darmstadt in the south. Newcomers EK Eppelheim decided not to participate, so that SV Möhringen could remain in the league. Among others, TSV Nördlingen in the south was promoted.
After the Olympic Games in Munich , TuS 04 Leverkusen, who had won five of the six national titles in the previous three years, had to forego the services of their coach Günter Hagedorn and lost with national players Norbert Thimm (abroad to Real Madrid ) and Dietrich Keller (to USC Heidelberg ) his "long guard" in the front court ; the Pollex brothers also returned to SSV Hagen . In the south, MTV 1846 Gießen dominated and only lost its first game in the second round at USC Heidelberg, which they had outclassed in the main round with 108: 68 at home, but eventually moved into the finals for the championship. In the other semifinals, "Didi" Keller defeated his former teammates from defending champion TuS 04 Leverkusen with USC Heidelberg. In the final games it was tied at the end of the regular playing time, so that at the end of the second final game an extra time was decided in favor of USC Heidelberg, which won its eighth championship overall and its first after the introduction of the Bundesliga in front of a home crowd. Final opponent MTV Gießen won the final of the cup competition a few weeks later against defending champion MTV Wolfenbüttel .
