QTSV Quakenbrück, representing its professional team as Artland Dragons, is a

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

club based in

Quakenbrück Quakenbrück (Northern Low Saxon: ''Quokenbrügge'') is a town in the Osnabrück (district), district of Osnabrück, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the river Hase. It is part of the ''Samtgemeinde'' ("collective municipality") of Ar ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Their home arena was the Artland Arena, which has room for 3,000 spectators. From 2003 till 2015 the club played in the

Basketball Bundesliga The Basketball Bundesliga (BBL) (English language: ''Federal Basketball League''), for sponsorship reasons named easyCredit BBL, is the highest level league of professional club basketball in Germany. The league comprises 18 teams. A BBL season ...

and in several European competitions. On May 3, 2015, the team announced that it would fold. Ultimately, the management decided to continue operations in the third tier Bundesliga ProB.

History

Basketball has a long tradition in Quakenbrück. It was first played in the

Artland-Gymnasium The Artland-Gymnasium Quakenbrück (AGQ) is a secondary school in the Samtgemeinde Artland, Artland region for students in grades 5 to 13. The ''Gymnasium (Germany), Gymnasium'' dates back to a Latin school first mentioned in 1354, making it one ...

school. The basketball section of the sports club QTSV Quakenbrück was established in 1955. In the 1970s, the first men's team got their first achievement, by being promoted to the second German League, where they stayed for three seasons. After a long time without great success, Günter 'Ice' Kollmann, former German basketball player and junior national team member, supported the QTSV team as a main sponsor. By continuous work on the youth education in the 1980s, the team had major successes in the 1990s. In 1994, the team was promoted to the second regional league, followed by promotion to the first regional league one season later, and promotion to the second national league another season later. In 2003, the promotion to the highest national league was made and the name of the club changed officially to Artland Dragons from QTSV Quakenbrück. QTSV then became a smaller partner club in a lower regional league. In the seasons 1995–96 and 2002–03, the team was unbeaten in its league. Starting from the 2003–04 season, the Artland Dragons played in the first tier

BBL A barrel is one of several units of volume applied in various contexts; there are dry barrels, fluid barrels (such as the U.K. beer barrel and U.S. beer barrel), oil barrels, and so forth. For historical reasons the volumes of some barrel units ...

a long time. In the 2006–07 season, the team managed to end 2nd in the regular season and played in the BBL Finals. The team lost 3–1 to first seeded

Brose Baskets Bamberg Brose Bamberg is a German professional basketball team from Bamberg, Franconia / North Bavaria. The club has won the German Championship title nine times and the German Cup five times. The club currently plays in the German top tier Basketball ...

. Starting from the 2007–08 season, the team also played in European competitions for 8 straight years. In May 2015, the club unexpectedly announced that it would dissolve the professional basketball club. The reasons for the closure included that the Dragons could not keep up with the growing budgets of other BBL teams, due to the club's small arena and lack of big sponsors. Keine Chance für Basketball
/ref> Eventually, the team decided to move back to the third division

ProB The ProB is the third-tier level league of professional club basketball in Germany. The league comprises 24 teams, separated into a Northern and a Southern Division. Officially, the ProB is part of the ''2. Basketball Bundesliga'', which consi ...

Logos

QTSV Quackenbrück logo.png, The original club logo

Trophies

German Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footbal ...

:*''Runners-up'' (1): 2007

German Cup The DFB-Pokal ( is a German knockout football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competition, including all clubs from the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. It is considered ...

*Winners (1): 2008 **''Runners-up (1):'' 2007

Season by season

Players

Current roster

Notable players

Partner & youth team

The Partner club of the Artland Dragons is the local basketball club "QTSV", with a men's team playing in the regional league, and a women's team playing in the second German women's league. There are also a variety of other teams (youth and adults, also

wheelchair basketball Wheelchair basketball is basketball played by people with varying physical disabilities that disqualify them from playing a non-disabled sport. These include spina bifida, birth defects, cerebral palsy, paralysis due to accident, amputations (of ...

). The youth team of the Artland Dragons is the "Young Dragons", which plays in the NBBL, the German youth team league (Nachwuchs Basketball Bundesliga).

Cheerleader squad and team mascot

The cheerleader squad is called "The Flames". It is trained by Annette Schone. The team mascot is a dragon called, "Tobi der Drache" (Tobi the Dragon).

References

External links

Artland Dragon's website

Teamcheck Artland Dragons
{{DEFAULTSORT:QTSV Quakenbruck Basketball teams in Germany