Murray up for fight with side on Rocks in league
ANDY MCGILVRAY
Glasgow Rocks boss Gareth Murray says he will never stop fighting to save their British Basketball League season.
Things have been going well for Rutherglen ace Murray in the last few weeks, as he helped Great Britain qualify for next summer’s Eurobasket, and the player-coach steered Rocks to the BBL Trophy semi-finals.
However, the league season isn’t going as he hoped, and back-to-back 92-67 and 63-60 defeats to Plymouth Raiders at the weekend left them bottom of the table with four points from 15 games, at the halfway point.
Their next match is against a Surrey Scorchers side that is directly above them by four points, followed by a clash against London Lions that will either be a league match, or their BBL Trophy semi-final first leg.
Murray says it has been a mixed few weeks.
He said: “Reaching the Eurobasket was the ultimate goal, so when you achieve that you’re always going to be happy. Just to be a part of that, beating Germany and France and Montenegro was great.
“It was good that we reached the semi-final of the BBL Trophy, but the league is a different matter right now.
“Results aren’t going the way we want them to, and the teams right above us are winning games as well, they’re scraping by with a one-point or twopoint win.
“It is a struggle, but we’re only halfway through the league just now, we still have 15 games to go, and quite a number of home games in a stretch towards the end of March.
“Hopefully we can pick up a couple of win against teams right above us.”
Murray, whose side are rock bottom of the league, added: “It was never going to be easy this year, it’s just about trying to get them motivated and keep them playing for each other rather than themselves – that’s the hardest part.
“There are some teams who have some big sponsors and you can see the level of player that teams have managed to bring in, so the talent is definitely up this year.
“I’ve said this season was always about trying to survive and make sure we’re here for the years to come, so we always knew it was going to be a struggle. We thought we would have won a few more games by now, but it is what it is.
“We have a semi-final against London coming up, plus we still have 15 league games to go, so for me personally, I’m never going to stop fighting, I’m going to try and keep the guys motivated as much as possible.
“We’ll see where we are at the end of the season, and then we’ll move on from there.”
London Lions beat Newcastle Jets 101-85 to set up that semi-final clash, which at the moment hasn’t been set.
Murray explained: “We do play against them on Sunday, it’s a league game, but I don’t know if they’re trying to change it to the Trophy game or not.
“It’s a two-legged game so we’ll play them down there and they’ll have to come up as well.
“These things change quite quickly, but especially with Covid and all the other things going on.
“Usually it’s set in stone, but a lot of change can be made really quickly. Right now it’s still league, but I’m not sure if they’re trying to change it.
“We play Scorchers on the Saturday and this is a big one. They had a really close game against London where it was a one-point loss, and then they beat Cheshire yesterday by two points, who were on a good run of games.
“They’ve definitely improved and it’s never easy going down to Surrey, no matter what team they have on the floor.
“Hopefully we’ll be motivated to go down there and try to get the win.”