London Lions and Leicester Riders will make British basketball history on Sunday in Birmingham when they line up in both men’s and women’s cup finals.
The same clubs have never competed in both men’s and women’s finals in the 35 years of BBL finals events.
Leicester’s men are the current holders of the cup and current championship leaders London were the 2019 winners.
In the WBBL Cup final, London are clear favourites, having gone unbeaten domestically since April 2021.
That run will have lasted for 50 games and 643 days when they line up for the final and the average winning margin is close to 40 points per game in that run.
The last team to beat the Lions was Leicester – in a league game in April 2021, after the Lions had clinched their first league title.
On Leicester’s team that day was GB Olympian Azania Stewart, who was returning to the UK after several years with European teams. She is now at Lions as one of five GB internationals on the squad.
“That’s a massive achievement when you’re at a high level and everyone is gunning for you,” she told BBC Radio London. “We don’t take winning for granted and prepare well for every game – because it would make any team’s season to be the first one to beat us.”
GB international guard Holly Winterburn, who led Leicester’s scoring with 36 points that day, is also now at Lions. Leicester’s women’s coach Krumesh Patel, is aware of the disparity this creates in the WBBL.
“The money they’ve spent is incredible,” he said of London Lions women. “They’re doing very well in the Europe Cup right now.
“We need to aspire to that as a programme. We’re doing really well right now with the team we have – but if you looked at the salaries of the two teams, you’d be amazed how different it is.”
Leicester have GB guard Hannah Robb and high-scoring American Oliana Squires in their back court and forward Ashley Arlen providing scoring up front. They won the WBBL Cup two years ago.
London’s men’s team is stacked with talent – Luke Nelson and former Love Island participant Ovie Soko are regular starters for the Great Britain national team and Kareem Queeley, Mo Soluade and Josh Sharma have all become regular members of the extended squad in recent years.
Add to that former NBA players Sam Dekker and 7ft Greek centre Kosta Koufos and the Lions are tooled for Europe and expected to dominate domestically.
The BBL abolished its long-held salary cap rules last summer, allowing teams with European ambitions like Lions to play a full team in BBL competitions too. This season, only London opted to take the step into Europe.
“They eliminated the salary cap and that impacted one team and one team only,” Riders men’s coach Rob Paternostro told BBC Radio Leicester. “They’ve put together one heck of a roster, a professional group that’s played very well together.
“Fortunately for us we have a chance – we’re underdogs but the pressure is firmly is on them.”
“There’s two sides to it – if you look across the leagues in Europe, there are always teams that are going to spend more money than other teams – there are expectations that come with that,” said Lions coach Ryan Schmidt.
“The other side is that there are a lot of variables that come into it – roster building, coaching. But I think that’s where our league is going as a whole.”
London’s men are on an 11-game winning streak in domestic competition, including an 81-75 win at Leicester over Christmas. They have lost only twice domestically this season.
That might not necessarily translate to success in BBL finals, however. London lost two finals last season when they were heavy favourites – to Cheshire Phoenix in the Trophy and Leicester in the BBL play-offs final.
On both occasions, the team came into the final quarter with with the game still undecided, then stopped scoring completely for long enough to lose them the game.
Paternostro’s Leicester took advantage of that in the play-offs final in May. Can they do it again in Birmingham?
