Ulm fell to Oldenburg 93-66 on Saturday night as they suffered their first German League loss of the season in the German league.

Throughout the season, Moshe Halickman, who has been covering Ben Saraf since 2021 for the Hebrew side of the Sports Rabbi website will now analyze the Israeli’s performances from a different point of view and from a fun angle in English too! But to find out what his final rating was you’ll need to read all the way until the end of the column.

The Good: It’s only up from here
Ulm has been going through a rough patch recently and one can get a good sense of that by looking at the final score which was just slightly more respectable than the defeat last week against Besiktas in the EuroCup. Ulm has lost four games this past week which began with a buzzer beating defeat gaunt Bamberg in the Round of 16 of the German Cup which was followed by a disastrous performance versus Besiktas in Turkey on Monday. From there, Ulm headed to play the Portland Trail Blazers in an exhibition game and as expected lost despite putting up a good fight and then it was yet another draftee this time against Oldenburg as it seemed that the club never landed after their flight back to Germany.

However even with all of these L’s, Ulm just dropped in the standings to second place with a 3-1 record while they are in 4th place in group A of the EuroCup with the same record. Saraf himself had a good week, although against Oldenburg he scored 9 points, committed 6 turnovers and handed out 4 assists, so things can only go up from here. In general, since his German league debut his numbers haven’t bee as good. Ulm will need to recover from the recent stretch of games after having had a strong start to the season. Coach Ty Harrelson tried to motivate his team with Zalgiris’s huge comeback against Milan in the Euroleague, but it was clear that it would be difficult to replicate this, especially when Ulm had comeback but Oldenburg the broke away one again.

The Bad: Poor start to the game
Oldenburg came into the game with the goal of causing issues for Ulm and Saraf from the get go. Saraf missed shots, committed turnovers and was unable to help on defense as well allowing the the opposition to take a huge lead. This is not the first time we have seen a poor start by Ulm and Saraf and as if that wasn’t enough, when Saraf coughed up the ball while dribbling he fell on the floor injured and asked for a substitute to come on as he received treatment on the bench. He wasn’t put for long and returned to action during the second quarter. Geno Crandall, who did not exactly impress during his short time Hapoel Beer Sheva, made life difficult for Ulm and Saraf as he scored 22 points and added 7 assists.

The Good: Positive leadership
The game was pretty much a lost cause very early on but Saraf did everything in his power to not give up. After a basket move and a foul by Oldenburg, he gathered the team on the floor for a conversation and earlier on defense he signaled to his teammates where to go. Also, the fact that coach Harrelson put him in about a minute and a half before the end of the game and there was no refusal or protest, something that some of the star players have a hard time doing, is a positive sign and indicates a lot about Saraf’s personality ad maturity.

The Bad: Turnovers
As mentioned above, Saraf’s turnovers are the most alarming part of his game. The first turnover occurred due to a lack of attention when he received the ball relatively late in the beginning of an offensive possession and he failed to cross half-court within 8 seconds of the inbound. While not all of the the turnovers are Saraf’s fault, he was to blame for most of them.

The Good: Soft hand from the midrange
It may have been too little and too late, but Saraf scored several times from the midrange and hit a triple near the end of the game as he gave it his all even when the contest was for all intents and purposes over.

The Bad: Defense
It’s been mentioned before that one of the areas that Saraf has had difficulties is on defense and there is no doubt that this needs to improve, since the NBA scouts see this as a very important piece of being a complete player. In this game Saraf’s opponents had little difficulty scoring from both the inside and outside.

The good: Blocks
Along with the defensive issues, Saraf still managed to show a glimmer of his potential on this side of the floor, as he provided an impressive and typical block to stop an opponent who was on his way to the basket.

The Rating: 5
For most of the game it looked like his rating would be even lower, but Saraf gave an effort to improve his situation a bit and to pin the defeat on him alone would not be fair, as the entire squad was not at their best. Even games like this one, that doesn’t include meeting Deni Avdija on an NBA floor are part of the journey. There’s always the next game and we really, really can’t wait for the next road clash against Gran Canaria on Tuesday (22:00), when Saraf and Ulm will try to get back on the awning track.