Jan Hegemann and Michael Moeller may both be working toward their doctorates in applied mathematics, but these two can do more than just spin axioms on their fingers and shoot integrals around.

Having played competitive basketball in Germany all their lives, they are no strangers to crowded gyms.

Both moved to the United States to work toward their master’s degrees, and then briefly returned to Germany before returning to UCLA for their doctorate degrees. Throughout their travels, Moeller and Hegemann have always been in the gym, playing the game they love: basketball.

The UCLA intramural three-on-three basketball season is underway, and Moeller and Hegemann are on the League A team Bratwurst and Wontons, which played in a semifinal game Tuesday night. In addition to their skills on the court, the team is also intellectually gifted. Hegemann worked toward his masters equivalent for a year starting in April 2009, and after returning to Germany for a little while, he’s back again for his doctorate in applied mathematics.

Moeller also came to UCLA for a year to work on his master’s equivalent around the same time, and he is doing research at UCLA for his doctorate. Also members of the team are biology, molecular biology and chemistry doctoral student Batbileg Bor and neuroscience doctoral student Wei Li.

Three-on-three may not be a popular tournament, but that’s not important for the players in the tournament.

All that matters for the members of Bratwurst and Wontons is their pure, unmitigated love of the game.

“Most people just want to play some ball,” Hegemann said.
Moeller, when asked whether he prefers three-on-three or five-on-five basketball, chose the latter.

“Well, that’s kind of what basketball is made for,” Moeller said of five-on-five play. “You can play full court, you can run fast breaks. You have many more options than just on- and off-ball screens, which is basically the options you have (in) three-on-three, to compact more players, and so it’s a little more tactics and a little more running game (in five-on-five), I prefer that.”

The rest of his teammates emphatically agreed.
“Yeah, definitely five-on-five,” Li said.

The team said in three-on-three, players don’t have a full court to work with, so a screen play can be devastating if executed well. Bratwurst and Wontons has the luxury of not just having to rely on off- and on-ball screens.

Hegemann is big and strong enough inside the stretch out the court, and Moeller and Wei can both shoot well enough that they can adjust to whatever way the defense is playing them.

“Three-on-three and five-on-five are both fun, they are both different,” Hegemann said. “Three-on-three is slower in that sense. On the other hand, you need a little less team play. In five-on-five you need to make sure everyone guards. It’s fun, both of them.”

They also made sure to explain that playing with only three people requires team players, and a ball-hog is a definitive formula for failure.

Ambition aside, players’ girlfriends don’t watch these games, and no one is there to see someone dunk on a five-foot-two freshman who had the misfortune of egotistically signing up for League A.
The gym may be empty, and the competition is often one-sided, but it’s still basketball, and there will always be people like the members of Bratwurst and Wontons playing basketball, simply out of love for the game.