Riders face battle royal tonight

SHARKS ARE THEIR OPPONENTS FOR THIRD TIME THIS SEASON ALREADY

LEICESTER Riders face their first home game in the BBL Championship at the Morningside Arena tonight (8pm), when they take on the Sheffield Sharks for the second time within a week.

The Sharks won easily on Monday night in the final qualifying match of the BBL Cup, when Riders put out a youthful team devoid of most of their senior squad.

In the away match in the Cup, it was Riders who stamped their authority on the game, when both teams were at near full strength.

So the teams know each other well, having also played in pre-season, and a battle royal is expected tonight.

The Sharks bounced back from an opening night loss in the Championship to a good-looking Cheshire Phoenix team, and with a comprehensive defeat of Surrey Scorchers at home last Sunday, they have now won two in a row.

On Monday, Riders got their first sight of Sheffield’s new signing Jeremy Hemsley, who replaced the experienced point guard Mackey McKnight just over a week ago, and the rookie from San Diego State University looked the part, adding shooting prowess to the Sharks to give them a more balanced attack.

Riders head coach Rob Pater no stro, right, knows his team is facing another tough match against familiar opponents.

“It is a scheduling quirk when you play a team for a third time so early in the season, and the fourth if you include pre-season,” he said. “The teams by now know each other really well and it should be a very good battle. “When you look at their new signing you see why they made the move to bring in the new guy. He is someone who can put up twenty points per game.

“In the early games they were struggling to score at times, and since they brought in Hemsley they have much more balance on offence.

“I think they are going to come here feeling good in light of their recent results, and of course they know our venue well, and they won’t have the Morningside crowd to face.

“They have a very experienced team, with guys who know each other over a period of time, and have a very good team camaraderie.

“After the disappointing results in the Cup they will want to make a good start to the Championship, so we will have to be ready to go.

“We have our two new guys as well, and they are just bedding themselves in and every game counts in that integration at this stage of the season.

“Both our guys have a high basketball IQ, but it is going to be a few games before they find out exactly their respective roles.

“Aaron Falzon is a guy who we can see can really shoot the ball and Ali

Fraser is just getting himself into shape, and hopefully he can pick up soon where he left off last season with Glasgow.

“It is already evident in the BBL this season you cannot have a night off, and it is hard to see where the easy wins are going to come from.

“The extra import player has ensured there is additional talent and more firepower in each team, and it is going to be tough to predict who is going to finish where.

“But I think staying healthy is going to prove critical to who finishes near the top.”

Leicester Riders: Corey Johnson, Jamell Anderson, Geno Crandall, Zach Jackson, Darien Nelson-Henry, William Lee, Conner Washington, Ali Fraser, Aaron Falzon, Greg Wild, Kyle Jimenez, Justin Hedley

Sheffield Sharks: Nick Lewis, Antwon Lillard, Bennett Koch, Rob Marsden, Jeremy Hemsley, Oscar Baldwin, Nathaniel Montgomery, Johde Campbell, Kipper Nicholls, Marko Backovic, Callum Jones, Mike Tuck