Promotion push is priority for second half of the season

IT’S 'HALF TIME' IN THE UK BASKETBALL SEASON, AND HERE PLYMOUTH RAIDERS' CHAIRMAN ROSS MACKENZIE REPORTS ON PROGRESS ON AND OFF THE COURT

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Lombe Mumba gets to the basket in the home win over Cardiff Met DAMIAN PUDNER

TO mark the move into a new year, I wanted to take the chance to look back at the season so far and chart the progress Raiders are making back through the National Basketball League, a journey we started in 2023.

This season's league shake up saw Raiders tip off in the new Division 2, where rivalries are regionalised and we once again prepared to square up to some old adversaries, including Gloucester Kings under former Raiders coach Jay Marriott, who were promoted after a flawless campaign in the old Division 3.

Cardiff City, demoted from what is now Division 1, are another team we have some history with across two fierce match ups in 2023/24 and split one win/one loss that year, but otherwise we were in familiar company again with Bath, Bracknell, Worthing Bears, Cardiff Archers, new comers Reading Rockets 2, Bristol Hurricanes and a club I have developed a great respect for - Portsmouth Force completing the nine opposition teams we'd have to overcome to meet our number one objective, promotion.

Going into this season, Raiders achieved a feat, unseen for perhaps two decades or more, (however, I defer to the historians amongst us and would happily be corrected) as we returned with a playing squad entirely cut from the previous season's cloth, with every player eager to continue the hard work and progress we'd laid down; in marked contrast to recent BBL years when even optimists and die hards would admit the club had been something of a revolving door.

Cruelly, last season both Tom Woods and Tom Elliott-Smith, two of our leading lights, were struck down with injury which meant extended periods on the sidelines and the wider squad having to dig deep, ultimately missing out on a promotion tilt by two losses in arguably the tightest league contest across all divisions of UK basketball.