The local basketball season will officially set off in the coming weekend with the customary male and female Super Cup finals in the seniors category.
The ball was rolling in Ta’ Qali two weekends ago with an intensive 19-game schedule over the course of 48 hours, yet this was for the annual pre-season tournament which is played under somewhat different rules, including a shortened 30-minute playing time.
Gżira Athleta and Hibernians were the respective men and women category winners but the official season is a totally different mettle with various other honours in the pipeline.
The Super Cup finals will be followed by the MBA Shield which takes teams into November.
At this stage, the preliminary phases of the BOV Knock-Out and the Borg Cup will be played before the top coveted competition, the respective BOV Men’s League and the MAPFRE MSV Life Women’s League get under way in around December.
In the men’s category, the clubs had decided, prior to the end of last season, that the quota for foreigners playing concurrently on the court will be brought down from three to two.
The main reason was financial in nature and, as in everything in life, there are always two sides of the coin.
It is no secret that, with most clubs making use of three import players on the court for most of the time, the tempo of the game last year was at a high and a number of games resulted also of quite a considerable technical standard.
Sasa Dimitrijevic, head coach of champions Gżira Athleta, admitted that he expects a drop in the level of the game.
“I expect this year to be of lower quality due to the number of foreign players, but I hope there will be a lot of uncertain matches,” he said.
Gżira Athleta have opted to bank on two tried-and-tested import players with NCAA Division 1 experience, namely the returning Connell Crossland and ex-Floriana Ian Theisen.
Crossland, the 201cm forward from Missouri and who featured with Texas Christian University in the NCAA until six years ago, came to Malta in January and resulted in a becoming a key player in last year’s championship winning side, even winning the Player of the Month award in February.
He is joined by the 206cm Minnesota-born Theisen who played for South Dakota in the NCAA top category up till 2018 before joining Floriana last season and also winning the Player of the Month award in January.
“It is a new season but the goals remain the same. Win every next game,” Dimitrijevic, whose son plays in the Spanish ACB league, said.
“As the champions, we have to give 100 per cent in every game. At the same time, we will also continue to promote young players as this is very important for our club. However, the promotion of youth depends only on them and from their own hard work.’
The champions will face Hibernians in the Super Cup final this Sunday at 4.15pm in what is expected to be an interesting encounter.
The Paola-based side will again be coached by Mario Tabone.
“The team has changed drastically for this season following that a number of key players have decided to either stop playing or relocate overseas,” Tabone said.
“It will be an interesting challenge to integrate the new players, such as David Bugeja, in the team and to elevate the role of the younger players but there is currently a good vibe in the squad. We are training hard together to make this another successful season.”
The Hibs’ import players will be the towering Serb centre Ivan Demcesen who also played with the Paolites in the last campaign and the 201cm Indiana-born Chandler Rowe.
The latter is a 24-year-old who played NCAA Division 1 ball for the Tennessee-Martin Skyhawks up until two years ago.
The Paolites failed to make it to the semi-finals in the Independence Cup on basket difference criteria although their import players did not feature in the team.
Swede William Ahlberg who played with Luxol in the past three seasons is reportedly in Hibs’ radar and may result in an addition to the squad in the coming weeks.
A promising season is expected by Depiro who, as coach Julian Naudi stated have a good mix of youngsters and very experienced players.
In fact Depiro’s squad was boosted in the summer with the inclusion of the young international Kurt Xuereb and the coach’s brother Michael who came out of retirement this summer.
“The idea is to help our young players grow with the help of these seasoned veterans and give them some good playing time in the first division,” said coach Naudi, who will be assisted by a new assistant, Christos Kousidis.
“I believe the young players have great potential and if they keep working hard they can make a good name for themselves.”
The import players will be Quin Cooper and Ben Evans.
Cooper is a 27-year-old six-foot six shooting guard who played college basketball with South-eastern Louisiana and Crowley Ridge. Two years ago, he featured for Tubas Al Okhuwa in Palestine.
On the other hand, Ben Evans is a 6’ 10 player from Delaware in Ohio, played with Malone University in the NCAA Division 2 up till a few months ago and was one of the best three-point big men shooters in college basketball.
“We have two new foreigners who have already left a good impression on us both as players and as hard working team-mates,” Julian Naudi said.
“The latter for me is very important if not the most important. As a team, we all think that Depiro can give a better showing than last year and compete for some trophies on the way.”
A club with loads of history is Luxol. This will be a transition year for the St Andrews based club as promising coach Duncan Fenech has taken over the reign of the senior team after veteran coach John Tabone called it a day following a lifetime of playing and coaching Luxol.
Fenech, similar to Depiro’s Naudi, successfully completed the FIBA coaching licence certification and will surely try to instil a new form of play given also that he will possess a very young side.
“The main objective for the upcoming season is to introduce young players from our nursery into the senior scene,” Fenech said.
“With the help of players with some experience like Vule Jandric, Stefan Cappello and even the young Keith Dimech, we believe that in the long term we can develop this young squad to become a competitive one.”
Asked about the difficult task to replace Tabone as the team’s mentor, Fenech was quick to state: “I understand that we have a responsibility to carry on the heritage of the club and I feel proud to be part of it. This gives the right motivation to work hard to accomplish our goals.”
Sticking with the young squad mentality, Luxol have signed the ex-Gżira Athleta guard Francesco Mifsud Bonnici and ex-Starlites U-19 player Isaac Pace and will start the season fielding two ‘local’ foreigners namely Jandric and Slako Opojevlic.
It is however expected that Luxol will engage some import professional player in the next transfer window in January.
Starlites GIG lost to Gżira Athleta in the final of the pre-season Independence Cup.
“Following last year’s footsteps, this year the aim will once more be that of including a number of developing young players in the rotation whilst keeping a competitive mindset,” coach Paul Ferrante said.
“Thanks to the help of the four import players we had on our books last year, our homegrown players upped their level through training with these imports.”
Asked about the reduction of the number of import players for the coming season, Ferrante said: “At present clubs seem to be setting up their pace, so it will be difficult to fire any predictions, however, with at least two imports per team, the games will be highly unpredictable.”
Team objectives
On the team’s objectives, the Starlites coach said: “Our job will be that of working hard and together. With regards to results’ predictions, as an old friend used to say “if you aim for the best, you’ll get somewhere near, but if you aim at nothing, you’ll always get it.”
The two-metre Konor Kulas is the confirmed import player for Starlites as Jeremy Marseille reportedly was only in Malta for a try-out during the Independence Cup tournament. Reports have it, however, that the 6’ 7 Rogers State (NCAA Division 2) graduate will be joining Starlites along the season.
The 25-year-old Kulas played in the Australia State League in the last two seasons, after a short stint in Germany, with the Werribee Devils, the same team the ex-Starlites and Malta international Jacob Formosa plays with down under.
The Wisconsin born centre had played in the NCAA Division 2 with South Dakota right up to 2017.
As regards the known whereabouts of some of last year’s import players, Depiro’s Trent Steen is now playing in Iceland with Hamar whilst Jerrel Martin, who played for Luxol, signed a contract with Titanes in Bolivia. Belgian Gael Hulsen, who featured with Floriana last season, is now playing in the German Regionalliga with Rhein Stars Koeln.