BBL Season Review 2019-2020
A strange season to review. Ultimately, the Eagles won their 25th Trophy in their history so all in all it was a successful season after two seasons without a trophy. Passport issues, Changing personnel and Ian Macleod’s first season as Head Coach made for a very eventful season!
The season started with the news that Fab was moving to America to work with the Toronto Raptors in the NBA. After so long with the club this came as a blow. It wasn’t long until it was confirmed that Ian Macleod would step up as Head Coach for the season.
There was a new format for the BBL season this year with an extended cup competition to begin the season. The season started with a lot of promise as the Eagles won their opening two matches with big performances from Rahmon Fletcher and Mike Morsell getting the season off to the best possible start. The first defeat of the season came at the ECA against Glasgow Rocks in an OT thriller with the Eagles going down by a point. The Eagles bounced back in the best possible fashion with two away wins against Leicester and Cheshire.
Moving into the All Stars break the Eagles were 4-1 in the Cup competition and considering the continued problems with Rodney Glasgow Jr’s passport this was a very encouraging start to the season. The Eagles made it through to the semi finals of the All Stars tournament losing to London Lions.
The All Stars break came at the wrong time for the Eagles as they lost their next three matches after that falling to 4-4 in the cup. Two big wins against Manchester Giants saw the Eagles move into the next round of the competition. The first match against Manchester turned out to be John Mitchell’s final game for the Eagles. He finished his season averaging 14.7 points, 10.1 rebounds and 1.1 assists over his 9 game spell.
Enter C.J Gettys. CJ’s debut came against Worcester Wolves in the next round of the Cup and despite 18 points the Eagles went down by 4 points. That was the end of the competition for the Eagles in a competition that Worcester went on to win.
The league campaign started with the long trip down to Plymouth where the Eagles won 110-103 in a very high scoring game. The top scorers for the Eagles were Fletcher with 32, Gettys with 24 and Morsell with 24. The season continued very well with a HUGE win over Manchester Giants (131-63). Positive vibes were evident as they were due to face Sheffield.
The first defeat of the championship season came in that game against Sheffield despite another big performance from CJ. The Eagles losing by a considerable margain of 23 points. Two days after that the Eagles travelled up to Glasgow in one of the most memorable matches of the season and a brilliant fourth quarter comeback to beat Glasgow by 4 points. CJ Gettys finished the weekend with 42 points and 33 rebounds across the two matches.
The inconsistent season continued in the league with the Eagles next 8 matches looking like… WLWLWLWL. During that spell of games was another sensational performance against London Lions. The final result was 108-97 with MVP going to CJ for his stellar performance of 30 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists. Not even a 33 point performance from GB international Ovie Soko could stop an Eagles home victory in front of another sell out crowd. As part of the win lose sequence the Eagles fell heavily to Leicester Riders during this run of games as well as they couldn’t get a run of wins together. Before the Coronovirus hit the country the Eagles were 7-6 in the league and 6th in the league table.
The Eagles saved the best performance until last. They travelled to Glasgow with a limited squad and in very uncertain times. They returned home with the Trophy after an OT classic. Our trophy campaign started in the new year against NBL side Dunfermline Reign. It was a professional performance from the Eagles which provided our biggest win of the season. Next up was Sheffield and with our record at this point in the season against Sheffield at 0-3 the Eagles were probably the underdogs going into the tie. They came out victorious 86-79 with Rahmon Fletcher picking up MVP for the match with his 30 points, 9 assists and 4 rebound performance. Onto the semi finals; a 2 legged tie against Cheshire Pheonix. The first leg was away and the Eagles won and took a valuable 9 point lead into the second leg at the ECA. Back at home for the second leg the Eagles did their best in the forth quarter to allow Cheshire back into the game but they held on to make the final. (Just…)
As mentioned previously the Eagles saved they best performance until last! 96-94 win in OT against NBL champions Solent Kestrels.
Here are the stats from the game:
Glasgow (40:36mins) 10 pts, 5 asts, 4 rbs
Saunders (24.42mins) 6 pts, 4 rbs
Defoe(42:50mins) 23 pts, 3 asts, 11 rbs
Gettys(40:26mins) 21 pts, 7 asts, 17 rbs
Fletcher(42:42mins) 29 pts, 6 asts, 5 rbs
Lasker(33:44mins) 7 pts, 10 rbs
Check out those numbers! When you consider CJ and Drew hadn’t played for a few weeks as well it makes the team performance even more remarkable. We will remember this game for a long time to come!
Here’s to next year...
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