Captain and Crandall are named in BBL Team of the Year
LEICESTER Riders captain Darien Nelson-Henry and American point guard Geno Crandall have been selected in the Molten BBL Team of the Year after leading Riders to the BBL Championship.
Crandall, from Minneapolis, has dazzled in his debut season and finished the campaign leading the league winners in scoring and ninth in the BBL with 15.9 points per game, second in the league in assists (7.8) and fourth in steals (1.9).
He also drew the second most fouls of any player in the league and shot an impressive 80 per cent from the line on more than five attempts per game.
He had nine double-doubles in the season, which was third among all players, including numerous efforts where he was close to a triple-double in games, led by a monstrous 18 points, 17 rebounds and eight assists in victory over Plymouth Raiders, and 12 points, 12 assists and eight rebounds in a crucial March win over title rivals London Lions.
Riders’ 6ft 11in skipper NelsonHenry, below, from Kirland, Washington, averaged 12 points and seven rebounds per game, also handing out 2.4 assists as one of the best passing big men in the league.
He finished fifth in the BBL in field goal percentage (58.7 per cent) and fourth in the league with a total of 160 two-point field goals made as the typical go-to player to get Riders established early in games.
Meanwhile, Riders duo Jamell Anderson and William Lee have been selected in the Molten BBL Defensive Team of the Year. Riders ended the season with the league’s best defence, conceding just 76.8 points per game. American forward Lee was joint-second in the BBL in blocked shots with 1.3 per game, and third in defensive rebounding with 6.4 per outing, also nabbing one steal per game and playing smart defence to average under two fouls.
Anderson is the only player to have featured in a previous Molten BBL Defensive Team of the Year, having done so in 2015-16.
He played in all 30 games and nabbed 0.9 steals per outing, which was the third best figures of his career.
Leicester Riders women stars Azania Stewart and Ella Clark have been selected in the Molten WBBL Defensive Team of the Year.
With Clark and Stewart on patrol, Riders conceded the fewest points in the paint of any team in the WBBL, at just 19 per game, and also allowed opponents a field goal percentage of just 33 per cent.
London 2012 Team GB Olympian Stewart led the WBBL with 1.9 blocks per game.
GB international Clark, who has also played netball for England, was second in the league in blocked shots, just behind her team-mate with 1.6 per game. ■■Riders’ William Lee and Geno Crandall have been selected in the BBL All-Star Five for the first week of the Play-offs.
Lee barely put a foot wrong in the first leg of their quarter-final gainst Bristol Flyers, scoring 13 points on 6-8 (75 per cent) shooting, while grabbing seven rebounds, blocking a massive five shots and handing out three assists.
Crandall scored 21 points against Bristol and dished out 10 assists, along with six rebounds, before adding a further 11 assists in the second leg.
Like Lee, Crandall was influential in the third quarter that broke the tie open, handing out five assists in under four minutes and scoring six points.