The London Lions have surpassed insurmountable barriers for British basketball in recent years - and the club look forward to a landmark European contest in Catalonia on Wednesday night.
The Lions are gearing up to face Spanish giants Club Joventut Badalona in the EuroCup Round of 16. The contest comes days after London secured a historic BBL Championship when they defeated the Surrey Scorchers 88-75 on Friday, clinching the title with six games remaining.
When they step onto the court to face Joventut, the Lions will become the first-ever British basketball team to compete in the play-off rounds of the prestigious EuroCup. Joventut are an established side on the continent, but London travel to Spain armed with former NBA talent in the form of Sam Dekker and Kosta Koufos.
Lions head coach Ryan Schmidt believes his team will be ready for the occasion, with a vibrant atmosphere expected ahead of the one-off play-off contest. Speaking exclusively to Mirror Sport, Schmidt said: “We’re feeling good. Obviously, it’s been a good regular season and now we’re facing a really good basketball team that finished second in it's group. We know we have a good test ahead of us but these kind of competitions - winner advances and loser goes home in one game - are what we play for.
“We’re going to try to put a 40-minute performance in that we can be proud of and we’ll see what happens.”
Club Joventut Badalona are former EuroLeague champions and remain one of only two sides to have never been relegated from the top Spanish division along with Real Madrid. They pose a genuine threat after finishing second in Group A while the Lions finished seventh in Group B.
The higher seed means the Spanish giants have home advantage with no return leg taking place. Schmidt heralded the differences between the two teams before identifying how his Lions can exploit mismatches and ultimately roar behind enemy lines.
“I think it’s pretty ironic that we end up getting matched up with Joventud. It’s our first year in the EuroCup competition and to get matched up against a team with a rich history and tradition… it’s a tale of two different stories and journeys,” Schmidt suggested. “It’s a really good test for us to face a really good team on the road, and our guys are up for the challenge.
“In order for us to come away with the win, it’s got to be one of those performances where we find success on the perimeter. They’re a team with a lot of physicality; we’ll have our work cut out for us and we need to make it so the game is in our favour from a match-up and line-up perspective. We’re going to have pretty much four guards on the floor the entire time, so if we can establish an identity early with the way we want to play, it can flip the script in our favour a little bit.
“If we struggle with their size and physicality early, that’s where they have an advantage - and the first chess move will be to try and exploit the mismatches on our end before they do the same to us. We need to shoot the ball really well from the perimeter, space the floor and force their big guys to guard.”
After bringing in the likes of Dekker and Koufos in among 15 new faces to their roster ahead of the 2022/23 season, expectations have been high for the Lions both domestically and in Europe. The Lions became the first British side to compete in the EuroCup since 2007, finishing the group stage with eight wins to go with 10 defeats while Joventut Badalona secured 13 wins to just five losses.
Schmidt admitted success in Europe was the ultimate ambition for the Lions at the start of the season, adding: “It was definitely a huge part of the measuring stick of our progress. It was a big reason behind the roster construction.
“There’s been a lot of exciting firsts this season - first British team to win a European knockout game on the road, first British team to win over five games and first British team to qualify for the Play-Offs - so any time you can achieve those things it’s something to be proud of.
“We’re not just happy to be here; this is a game we are confident we can win if we do what we’re supposed to do. I think we have a really good chance of winning and that’s the focal point right now.”
If the Lions go on an incredible run to the EuroCup final, they will secure qualification to the EuroLeague. Perhaps that is a step too far at this moment in time, but one thing is for sure: London is truly becoming a city of note on the European basketball map.
