A first round in progress

The senior, with a completely new and very young squad, has been growing with the passing of the days and arrives at the equator at the top of the CA group of the EBA League

| Friday, 19 January 2018

The first round in the CA group of the EBA League has closed and the seniors of Básquet Girona are making adequate progress in the competition. The team led by Quim Costa has been gaining in consistency and collective cohesion over the weeks, after starting the season with a completely new squad and with players mostly between 19 and 21 years old. This commitment to youth has also been reinforced with the debuts in the category of Pau Casademont, who usually plays with CB Sant Narcís (Catalan 2nd), and junior Eduard Ramos.  

Since the first day, the Girona side have always shown competitiveness and are currently leaders of the group with 10-3, the same record as Vive El Masnou Basketball. He is currently on a six-game winning streak. At home, they won 6-1 (defeat in the 7th matchday, against Arenys Básquet Joventut) with an increasingly large crowd in Fontajau. This past weekend, against CB Quart Germans Cruz, almost a thousand spectators were reached. The commitment to a lively game, with rhythm and a lot of defensive activity, has allowed him to be the top scorer (78.2) and with the best percentage in triples (41.2%). Xavi Costa is the team’s top scorer (13.6 points), in which most players are on court between 11 and 24 minutes on average.  

The sporting director, Àlex Formento , assesses his career and prospects for the second round:

-“The assessment of the first round is very positive. The fact of being such a young and completely new squad made us think of a longer period of adaptation to the category. The effort of players, technicians and all the people who work day-to-day with the team has allowed the deadlines to be shortened”

-“We work on creating an identity, making ourselves recognizable by a collective spirit and a certain way of playing, regardless of the opponent in front of us, putting the technical element above the tactical one, enabling our players to always are able to meet the challenges that the competition poses to them, now and especially in the future. This involves a process, a long way to go, but we value positively how we are moving through it”

-“The objective of this second part of the season does not change at all. In fact, we don’t want it to be a second half, but we continue in the same way, with the sole aim of being better every training, every game, and that the individual improvement of each one makes us a better team. Our players do not lead any of the league’s individual statistical rankings, but the team as a whole does have a notable presence in these when the assessment is global, and this is one of the identity traits we want”

-“That 11 players in the team play more than 10 minutes per game and none of them exceed 25 minutes on average is a satisfaction because it means that everyone has the required involvement”

-“We found a competition with a very equal level. All the teams that make it up have the ability to beat anyone and this fact, apart from making it very attractive, forces you to always be at a high level of effort and concentration in order to be competitive. At the same time and in such an even competition where so many games are decided by very short margins and where two defeats in a row can take you to the middle of the classification table, making an assessment based solely on the current classification can lead to confusion you”

-“If we all continue to work on our improvement, putting it at the service of the group with the same enthusiasm to improve daily and grow in our ability to concentrate while maintaining solidarity, when the season is over we will surely make a very positive assessment, be it what is the classification”

The competition, however, does not stop and the senior will open the second round on Saturday, receiving BBA Castelldefels in Fontajau (7 p.m.), whom they already defeated in the first round by 67-81. Despite being placed in the middle of the table (tenth, 5-8), it has achieved three of these victories at home, and on not easy tracks such as Arenys Básquet Joventut or OIC Penta UB Sant Adrià. Entry to the match is free.  

Classification and timetables