Karhu Basket is in the finals of the Basketball League for the fourth time in a row. The very familiar team Salon Vilpas will also compete in the final series starting on Monday.
Kati Ala-Renko,
Roope Visuri
The basketball league final series starts today, Monday, in Kauhajoki.
Teemu Rannikko throws the ball out of his hands. The buzzer sounds. One of the toughest Finnish basketball players of all time ends his career in a sweet way for the first Finnish championship. Salon Vilppa’s first championship party is also gaining momentum.
At the same time, in Salohalli, another camp in Kauhajoki’s Karhu Basket, the atmosphere is very different. Karhu Basket had won the previous two Finnish championships, but the third did not come. The team had been winged at the time of the season, and the flight did not last until the end.
A year has passed. Now Vilpas and Karhu Basket will meet again in the finals.
– Above all, the lesson was that the players should be healthy when playing the season games, Karhu Basket’s head coach Janne Koskimies notes.
Koskimiehi’s attention is apt in that sense, because health murders in Kauhajoki have not been avoided this spring either.
Bear Basket had to give up two games at the end of the regular season because the team had only four representative players. The team had a coronary virus.
– Of course the situation and the performance of the team were worried. Honestly, I had to think about it every hour. There were so many players who hadn’t crowned yet sick at that point. It is also never possible to be sure how quickly players will recover. It is always individual, Koskimies says.
Karhu Basket had already secured a victory in the regular season, and the handover losses did not in themselves have a greater impact on Kauhajoki.
Fierce team healthy
The team was greeted in the playoffs by being able to strike. In the semi-finals, Lahti Basketball fell first. Helsinki Seagulls, one of the biggest champion favorites with Karhu Basket before the start of the season, was still under the semi-finals.
– We are able to perform at a pretty good level. Some players may see that fatigue comes faster. Our style of play is intense, so no one should take flutes on the field either. We just keep the exchanges so short that there will always be fresh men on the field, Koskimies describes.
Being healthy, Bear Basket has been a tremendous team. Tough American Quartet Cameron Jones, Rene Rougeau, Simeon Carter and Lee Skinner has waved the beat.
There is enough width in Koskimiehi’s team. The team also has several exemplary Finnish responsible players, such as Henri Kantonen and Severi Kaukiainen.
Jones and Rougeau were already in one big role in the club’s previous championship 2018-2019. Kantonen, on the other hand, played a big role in the club’s first championship team a year earlier, as did Rougeau.
Fans attract attention in Kauhajoki and all over Finland
The Bear Basket has lost only twice at home this season. The team has a passionate backing behind it. The head coach Koskimies smokes the great importance of the fans, because the team’s way of playing is demanding and you have to get a lot of energy for it. According to Koskimiehi, it has also been received from fans.
– At the beginning of the season, the players said that we were able to start with seven home games when there were so many fans in all the away games. Usually the noise is louder in our direction even in away games. That’s a huge advantage, Koskimies says.
About the leaders of Karhu Basket’s supporters’ association Tuomas Kujanpää says the fan club has 210 members. 35 of them are active in away games.
– Encouragement in home games is easier when there is a bigger crowd behind. We have succeeded in guest games as well. Even in Helsinki, there has been noise in Kisahalli, where there is usually no noise at all, Kujanpää thinks.
In the semi-finals in Helsinki, a small uproar broke out against Seagulls when drums were banned from Karhu Basket’s supporters’ association in Töölö Race Hall. Fans of the Bear Basket then cut Tambourines from the drums because they were allowed. According to Kujanpää, the idea came from another beak man of the fan association From Pertti Holma.
– It didn’t take long for them to be made. I did it myself and in the style of saving, Kujanpää laughs.
Now the jippos made for the finals have not yet been revealed by the supporters’ association. However, bans like Helsinki are not believed. There is plenty of interest, as the first fan bus ran full ten minutes after registration opened.
“There are more versatile things to do in Vilppa”
Both Koskimies and Kantonen are looking forward to the final series starting on Monday in Kauhajoki, especially because the final teams have so much history in common. The fact that he moved to Vilppa in Kauhajoki in the spring of 2018 brings his own tone to Kantonen.
– We will definitely get some pretty heated finals again, Kantonen says.
– Of course I will try to bring things up from Vilppa if I feel they will help us in the finals.
In the regular season, the matches between the final teams went to Vilppa as much as 3–1. According to Koskimiehi, Vilpas offers a different challenge than the previous resistance of Lahti and Seagulls in the playoffs.
– There are more versatile weapons in Vilppa. They have strong indoor players, one excellent shooter and fast backers. Vilpas is able to split our defense in several ways. The defense must now succeed in all areas, Koskimies says.
He refers, for example, to the American reinforcement that was a nuisance to Karhu Basket and roared under the basket in last year’s finals. Jeremiah Woodiin as well as a top thrower familiar from the national team To Mikko Koivisto.
– Vilppa has a lot of special expertise that we need to get away with, Kantonen bundles the situation.
Becoming a success and another big step in the fall
Karhu Basket has already cemented himself in the Basketball League as a kind of enduring success. Kauhajoki is in the Korisliiga final for the fourth time in a row.
Janne Koskimies joined Jussi Laakso as assistant coach for the period 2017–2018. When Laakso left Seagulls at the end of spring 2019, Koskimies became the head coach.
The 33-year-old head coach lists a long list of reasons for Karhu Basket’s success. Current CEO of the Basketball Association Ari Tammivaara arrived in Kauhajoki as head coach in 2010. During the four seasons, Karhu Basket reached the playoffs. Under Tammivaara’s leadership, training conditions were developed to a high level.
In addition, Koskimies raises the successful recruitment of players.
– You have to recruit the right type of players who adapt here to a small town, are serious and want to invest in basketball. The conditions around playing and training are as good as possible, Koskimies says.
New steps are also being taken in Kauhajoki to ensure that the match event itself is of a high standard. A new multi-purpose arena is being completed in Kauhajoki with private money, which can accommodate 5,000 spectators at a time, or 40 percent of the residents of the city of Kauhajoki. There are about 13,000 inhabitants in Kauhajoki. The new hall is scheduled for completion in the autumn.
Koskimies has even been able to be involved in the design of the hall.
– It has even been an unreal situation for a Finnish basketball coach, Koskimies glows.
Koskimies has been planning, for example, what kind of facilities the team will have. Gyms and coaches’ workspaces, among others, have been on the list.
– Bear Basket will be the main user. According to the club, things are done. Even at the European level, there is an exceptional situation that can be achieved here, Koskimies is already tasting the future.