QTSV Quakenbrück

QTSV Quakenbrück, widely known as Artland Dragons is a professional basketball club based in Quakenbrück, Germany. The club's home arena is the Artland Arena, which has a capacity of 3,000 spectators. From 2003 till 2015 the club played in the Basketball Bundesliga and in several European competitions.

On May 3, 2015, the club announced that it would fold. Ultimately, the management decided to continue operations in the third tier Bundesliga ProB.

In 2018, the Dragons were promoted to the ProA.

History

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

In June 2024, British head coach Vincent Macaulay took over the reigns for the Artland Dragons. He started out with a ProA winning streak of 4 games. After going to 4-5 record, he was released. The decision to release Macaulay faced severe criticism as, under new leaderhsip, the Dragons lost 12 games in a row.

Logos

QTSV Quackenbrück logo.png, The original club logo

Trophies

German Bundesliga
:*''Runners-up'' (1): 2007
German Cup
*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). 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:Artland Dragons

Basketball teams established in 1955
Basketball teams in Germany
Osnabrück (district)