The Elite Academy Basketball Leagues tipped off this week with new and returning academy programmes joining the men’s and women’s competitions. The changes follow Basketball England’s review of Cat…

A player’s college career helps shape what comes next, and different coaches look for different things in that experience. Looking at which college graduates SLB clubs recruit, and what those playe…

The SLB started the season unrecognised, in dispute with its governing body, missing the referees from the previous season, and with a FIBA taskforce hanging over the sport. However fragile it all …

In the second season of Tesonet’s ownership, London Lions completed the first quadruple in franchise history. Two years after the club needed rescuing, they won everything. The league, the Cup, the…

Pat Robinson dribbled towards the paint before kicking the ball out to Skyler White at the top of the arc. Owen McCormack saw the danger and closed out hard to stop the three. White took one dribbl…

A year ago, Manchester looked like a good team in search of a club. This season, the investment, the European push and Kaiyem Cleary’s return made it easier to see what Manchester were trying to be…

Last season, Leicester looked settled, with a clear core and defined roles. This season, Leicester kept having to become something else, until the question became how many times a team can be pulle…

One Tuesday in March, the Newcastle Eagles invited season ticket holders to the Vertu Motors Arena to discuss the club’s future. Owner Paul Blake, men’s head coach Marc Steutel, women’s player-coac…

Early in their player development programme video, head coach Lloyd Gardner makes clear that Surrey see its role as bigger than the first team. The professional game within this country needs to un…

Sheffield were not bad this season. They finished fourth in the Championship and stayed competitive. But this was the second season after Vaughn Millette arrived as the club’s new owner. His first …

Bristol brought back less of last season’s rotation than almost anyone else in the league. Early on, it looked like they had changed well. The ball moved, the scoring was shared, and the defence wa…

This season tipped off without any of the referees from last season. In those early weeks, officiating looked unsettled at times as the league’s opening games tested a completely new group. Early r…

In February, for a few seconds, there was pure joy. Sixteen-year-old Caledonia Blues prospect Nino Satha stepped onto the court for his professional debut for the Caledonia Gladiators. He ran to hi…

What is BPM? BPM stands for “box plus minus” and it’s a way of converting basketball box scores into a single value that represents a player’s overall contribution. It can also be presented as both…

Every other week this season, I published an article on youth basketball in Britain. I started out knowing very little. What I did have was time, curiosity, and a willingness to knock on doors, tal…

The Manchester Basketball Centre is hosting the North West Regional Finals, the culmination of the North West regional league season. A banner of Trafford-born Georgia Anderson — the all-time leadi…

Tomiwa Sulaiman’s individual offensive numbers are poor. He uses few possessions and has not scored efficiently when he does. Leicester’s impact data suggests he has still been helping them. That i…

Bristol’s offence can look balanced at first glance. The ball moves, different players score, and no one player dominates the shots. But the passing behind those baskets is much less evenly spread.…

When Bristol Flyers were founded, the ambition was bigger than simply putting a professional team on the floor. Speaking on The Bristol Flyers Podcast last season about the club’s early days, forme…

No player in the SLB has spent more time on court this season than Kino Lilly Jr. Surrey have leaned on him more than anyone else in the league, not just because of his shooting, but because he can…

No five-man lineup in the SLB has been more effective this season than Cheshire Phoenix’s Pat Robinson, LaQuincy Rideau, Michael Diggins, Frankie Policelli and Skyler White. It offers a useful pict…

Every year since 2017/18, Hoopsfix has published a Brits in College article tracking which British women are playing in North American college basketball. Each season also includes a list of player…

Every year since 2010/11, Hoopsfix has published a Brits in College article tracking which British men are playing in North American college basketball. Each season also includes a list of players …

The Great Britain Men’s long list for the most recent FIBA World Cup qualifiers included 20 names. Five were from London Lions. Two were from Manchester Basketball. Only one other Super Leagu…

Governing Body Endorsements (GBE) were impossible to ignore last summer. Visas, eligibility, and league recognition became flashpoints that shaped roster construction and even the start of the seas…

Every weekend across England, junior basketball teams load into cars, pile into minibuses, and travel to play competitive games across the country. Hundreds of fixtures. Dozens of towns and cities.…

Manchester’s numbers with Matt Nicholson on the floor tell a story that is both encouraging and frustrating. When he plays, opponents’ shot selection shifts away from the rim and towards less effic…

Before Cam Christon signed, Bristol sat second-bottom in Super League Basketball for offensive rating. They were generating fewer efficient possessions than almost everyone else in the league. At t…

European basketball isn’t a rarity in the SLB. Four clubs have been competing in two different European competitions this season. ClubCompetitionLondon LionsEuroCupBristol FlyersENBLManchester Bask…

The academy players were running a practice drill for their base man-to-man offence on the sprung wooden court of the Wildcats Arena. The rule was simple: every possession had to start with a wing …

Surrey’s season has a clear dividing line. Before Tyrin Lawrence arrived, they looked like a bottom-two team. Since then, they have played like one of the league’s best. Lawrence’s arrival at the s…

The day after the NBA brought a regular-season game to the O2, a different room in London hosted a different kind of audience. 250 invite-only guests gathered at the Raffles Hotel for private brief…

Ages 18 to 23 are a decisive phase in a basketball player’s development. This is when players begin the transition from prospect to contributor, completing their physical growth and learning to sur…

For the first two months of the season, the MVP conversation looked to be settling before it had fully formed. Joel Scott’s early performances stood out, quickly establishing him as the standard ev…

Don Carey Jr leads the league in assists per game. RayQuan Battle leads it in points per game. That alone would make Leicester’s backcourt stand out. What elevates it is how cleanly those roles are…

The years after junior basketball are not self-sustaining. Without structure, they break down. Across Europe, leagues respond by building explicit mechanisms for this phase. The examples below show…

How many players can one team carry who all expect to finish possessions? Sheffield’s offence this season is built around that question. Rather than spreading responsibility across contrasting role…

Coaching philosophies are easy to articulate in isolation. They are harder to sustain when the environment changes. For teams competing across multiple leagues, the real test is not whether a coach…

Leicester run one of the few pathways in the country that carries players from junior basketball all the way to the professional game. The structure is simple, with each stage feeding the next clea…

Buried in this season’s regulations is a small change to how games are scheduled. Under 17.9 in the SLB operating rules, teams will no longer be required to play two domestic fixtures on consecutiv…

Every team has a fifth option. The player defences are happy to leave alone, the one who is not meant to swing games. For Manchester, that role belonged to Zak Irvin — measured, selective and quiet…

Doors to the Vertu Motors Arena open at 8:30am. The night before, Cage Warriors filled the arena; a fighter’s mask is cleared as three courts are set up for basketball. Scoreboards flicker on. Tabl…

Surrey have built their season on the glass — everything they do starts there. As Surrey fan Scott Horsburgh said on the Brits Don’t Jump podcast, rebounding has sat at the heart of the 89ers for y…

Leicester opened last season with a clarity few teams in the league could match. Their starting lineup stayed untouched for nine straight games, the rotation barely shifted, and then Rob Paternostr…

Blaze Basketball stand out because of what sits underneath the teams you see on the court. Access to the Crags Centre, coaches who’ve come through the club and a pathway that stays steady from the …

The Youth Pathway series is a season-long look at how young players in Britain move from grassroots basketball to the professional game. Through profiles, data analysis, research and reporting, it …

Few teams in the SLB have shifted more in the opening weeks than Newcastle. Line-ups, roles and rotations have changed almost game by game. Through eight fixtures they have already started seven di…

Every sport needs a bridge between education and the professional game. When government funding arrived through the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE) in 2004 — and later its suc…

Small-ball isn’t new. For nearly a decade it has shaped modern basketball — faster line-ups that trade size for shooting, spread the floor, and switch defensively. Newcastle have taken it in a dist…

Some skills fade as the competition gets tougher — size evens out, speed meets its match, athleticism stops being an advantage. Shooting isn’t one of those skills. It scales. The higher the level, …