Join Telenet Giants Antwerp team captain Dave Dudzinski as he blogs his way through his maiden 7DAYS EuroCup campaign.
Dave Dudzinski: 'We are fearless'
Blogs
7 mins read
Telenet Giants Antwerp has returned to the 7DAYS EuroCup for the first time since 2008 and a lot has changed in the organization, which now holds its games at the magnificent Lotto Arena. One of the players who has seen the club's growth is team captain Dave Dudzinski, who is in his fourth campaign with the Belgian powerhouse. He started his professional basketball career with Italian side Moncada Agrigento and also played for Siauliai of Lithuania and Steaua Bucharest of Romania before joining Antwerp in 2017. Dudzinski helped Antwerp win back-to-back Belgian Cups in 2019 and 2020 and led the team to a third-place finish in the 2018-19 Basketball Champions League. The club took a major step forwards by joining the EuroCup to compete against tougher opponents. Dudzinski will tell us about his and his team's first EuroCup experience in this EuroCupBasketball.com blog. Don't miss it!
First of all, it is great to be in the EuroCup. It's definitely a big step up for the organization, Telenet Giants Antwerp, to get some respect in Europe because I feel like since I arrived a couple years ago, we really were building something, building up and building up, and now we got to a very big stage, the EuroCup. We just want to show that we belong and we can be competitive and make some noise in this big competition. Some people may think we are not experienced at this level. We maybe don't have the experience, but also, we don't have any fear. Some of our guys, like myself, we played Champions League for the last two years and made a deep playoff run. So we have played big games against big teams. Of course, the EuroCup is a little bit different because some of the teams here definitely have ambitions to win the whole thing and move to EuroLeague. That's something that we haven't had a chance to play against and we don't have experience against that. But I guess we are fearless when it comes to who we play. It's like all these teams are big and we know that we will be the underdog most nights, but you know, we don't fear anybody and I think that's a strength for us.
"We just want to show that we belong"
This is my fourth season with Antwerp. I have really enjoyed my time in Antwerp, but never thought I'd be here for four years! But you know, after the first two years I was here, they started to put a little bit more money in the club and also, we have fantastic facilities. We probably have one of the best practice facilities in Europe with a great weight room and a huge basketball court that is just for us. We have a fantastic arena with good organization and everything. The money is always on time, the city is fantastic, it is a great place to live, it is very comfortable to live in Antwerp. Whenever I go into the off-season, I look at other teams and it has to beat a lot of these things. This is a club that has a lot of good things and it is going forward. I think we are hopefully building it to be a good basketball destination in Europe.
We just played our game against Lokomotiv Kuban in Krasnodar. We were leading at halftime, but Lokomotiv beat us in the end. We came out and they really were trying to beat us up down low, but we were playing pretty well. The game was a little bit slow-paced in the beginning. We executed our plays very well for the first time being together at this level. In the second, we kind of made some really bad turnovers in the third quarter, allowed them to take the lead again, and once you give a team like that the lead, it is hard to recapture it, especially on the road. We have to be maybe a little bit tougher in those crucial moments of the game, but all in all, I think we showed that we do belong in this competition. They made a run at the end to make the score look a little bit worse than it was. I thought we were with them the whole game and just had a couple of turnovers: if we could have really kept the game close to the end, I think they would have been a little bit nervous.
It was great to play in front of fans, too. Honestly, this summer, there were times where you were wondering "hey, I don't know what's gonna happen this year. I don't know when I will be able to play a game again." It was training and training, but sometimes you have those moments where you are wondering if there would really even be basketball this year. So for me, I was even a little bit emotional to have the opportunity to play again in front of fans. I know that we will have fans in Belgium and it's just great to continue to give that back to the community, to have these opportunities to play in front of people and in these times, bring people together a little bit. It's really nice. I think that we have a good plan for our first home game, from what I understand, to bring a certain number of fans into the arena and keep everybody safe. And that's what's really important for us, because we want to share what we what we do with our city and our fans. It is really nice that we have the opportunity to do that this year.
"Our fans and the city will be ready to host this game."
"Speedy" Smith had a good game in Krasnodar. He is maybe the fastest player in the EuroCup and for me, the way we saw him play in Belgium last year, it is no surprise; he can really play. He is a great guy off the court. I just met him because we only started our pre-season three weeks ago, but we get along very well and he's a really good guy. I think he's really going to be a key for us this year, especially in this competition, because he can play at a high level and runs the team really well. So far, he has been awesome to play with. I think people will naturally keep an eye on him because he's one of our top players and he is going to run the show for us. If we can get him going, it is going to help us in these high-level games.
Our next game is at home against MoraBanc Andorra. As I mentioned, it will be our first home game with fans in a long time. Every game we play is going to be a tough matchup. Andorra is a regular in the EuroCup and we are well-aware that they are a high-level team. It is going to be really fun; I already had several fans message me saying how excited they are to have a game back in Lotto Arena again. I think that our fans and the city will be ready to host this game. As far as Andorra, we have played against Spanish teams before and kind of know how their style of play is compared to other countries. We will prepare and see which advantages we can get. Obviously, we are very excited to be playing. So Antwerp fans, come watch us, we will put on a show on Tuesday!