Saturday night in the BBL Championship saw a shuffling of the pack in the top four as Leicester Riders and Worcester Wolves both bounced back from defeats.
Riders did so emphatically, to go clear at the summit of the table, as 20 points from Tyler Bernardini led them to a 77-56 win over Sheffield Sharks for an eighth straight home success.
Wolves, meanwhile, took that opportunity to jump above the Sharks into third place in the BBL Championship, with an 82-77 defeat of Bristol Flyers courtesy of a second half comeback and 16 points each for Pavol Losonsky and Perris Blackwell.
BBL Championship
Leicester Riders 77 (16,33,51) (Bernardini 20, Gruis 15, Watson 15)
Sheffield Sharks 56 (17,30,41) (Tuck 22, Robinson 14, Odister 7)
Leicester Riders 77 (16,33,51) (Bernardini 20, Gruis 15, Watson 15)
Sheffield Sharks 56 (17,30,41) (Tuck 22, Robinson 14, Odister 7)
Leicester Riders bounced back convincingly from Friday night’s defeat, a first in thirteen games, to beat Sheffield Sharks 77-56 at Leicester Sports Arena and move clear at the summit of the BBL Championship table.
Having lost to Leeds Force in Yorkshire, they found themselves trailing to the Steel City side early in this game, one point down after a tight opening ten minutes. But TrayVonn Wright opened the second stanza with a three-pointer as Riders scored the first six and held their visitors scoreless for three and a half minutes. That run extended to 12-4 over seven minutes, as Trevor Gruis added a pair of baskets for a 28-21 lead.
Kyle Odister responded with a three-pointer for Sharks, but at 33-30 it was a low-scoring first half between the league’s two best defensive sides.
Sharks had another scoreless three minutes to open the second half, while Gruis scored consecutively once more, and they were forced into a timeout when Tyler Bernardini added a three-pointer for 42-33.
Drew Sullivan pushed the lead into double-digits, and then he opened the fourth quarter with a three-pointer. Riders’ captain sparked a 15-5 surge that extended Leicester’s lead to twenty points and won the game, Bernardini scoring ten points in that run to make the score 66-46.
It was an eighth home win in a row for Riders, led by 20 points from Bernardini and a double-double of 15 points and 11 rebounds from Gruis. It was a first defeat in four for the Sharks, but a sixth loss in their last eight road games as they dropped to fourth place in the table.
BBL Championship
Bristol Flyers 77 (23,43,58) (Streete 22, Seilund 20, Lee 11)
Worcester Wolves 82 (20,37,63) (Blackwell 16, Losonsky 16, Couisnard/Jordan 15)
Worcester Wolves produced a second half comeback to beat Bristol Flyers 82-77 and jump above Sheffield Sharks into third place in the BBL Championship.
Flyers came into the game on four consecutive defeats, missing their leading scorer Cardell McFarland (concussion) and without a win against the Wolves in the BBL Championship (now 0-6). But, chasing down a Play-off spot, they raced out to a 14-4 lead as Doug McLaughlin-Williams hit back-to-back three-pointers.
Jay Couisnard scored consecutively to spark an 8-0 response from the Wolves, but they trailed for much of the first half. In the second stanza, Mathias Seilund and Thomas Tinsley hit three-pointers, and when Greg Streete added two more the hosts were 43-32 up, having scored 7/10 from long-range.
But Wolves set about narrowing the gap after the break, getting back to within one shot on Couisnard’s triple, and that inspired a huge turnaround with a 14-3 surge that saw them take the lead on Javier Mugica’s basket, at 59-53.
A low-scoring start to the fourth suited Wolves, against the league’s lowest-scoring side, as the teams shared just six points in five minutes. And the hosts struggled to get close as Pavol Losonsky and Perris Blackwell kept Wolves ticking over, and they made 7/9 late free-throws.
There was one last spurt when Seilund, twice, and Streete scored three-pointers inside the final thirty seconds, giving them a shot at 80-77 with 12 seconds to play. But Mugica made two crucial free-throws and settled it for the visitors.
Wolves spread the scoring load on the night, with Losonsky and Blackwell scoring 16 each, while Couisnard and Aaron Jordan added 15 each.
| P | PL | W | L | Pts | |
| 1 | Leicester Riders | 31 | 28 | 3 | 56 |
| 2 | Esh Group Eagles Newcastle | 30 | 27 | 3 | 54 |
| 3 | Worcester Wolves | 31 | 19 | 12 | 38 |
| 4 | Sheffield Sharks | 30 | 18 | 12 | 36 |
| 5 | Glasgow Rocks | 31 | 17 | 14 | 34 |
| 6 | London Lions | 30 | 14 | 16 | 28 |
| 7 | Cheshire Phoenix | 31 | 14 | 17 | 28 |
| 8 | Plymouth University Raiders | 30 | 12 | 18 | 24 |
| 9 | Leeds Force | 31 | 12 | 19 | 24 |
| 10 | Bristol Flyers | 30 | 8 | 22 | 16 |
| 11 | Manchester Giants | 30 | 7 | 23 | 14 |
| 12 | Surrey Scorchers | 31 | 7 | 24 | 14 |