Coach Creon frustrated at Heat exit but looks to future

The Surrey Heat’s 2012/13 campaign recently ended with an aggregate 202-178 play-off semi-final loss to the Newcastle Eagles, leaving head coach Creon Raftopoulos time to evaluate the Heat’s best season under the Zimbabwean’s reign.

“I use a Shakespeare quote quite freely when I say ‘Expectation is the root of all heartache’ and sometimes when you don’t have any expectations, you can play pressure free,” said Raftopoulos looking back on a year that saw the Heat win six of their first seven games, before finishing fourth in the league and ultimately bowing out of the play-offs to the Eagles. Despite a franchise-best record since 2008/9, Coach Raftopoulos has been left disappointed by the manner in which the Heat’s season ended: dumped out of the post season despite beating the Eagles in Surrey in the second leg of their semi-final.

“The play-off format isn’t my cup of tea,” admitted Raftopoulos who would like to see the BBL change play-off rounds to a ‘best of’ series. “Look at Glasgow Rocks who really fought for that third-place spot. They went all out for it and in return, they get the first leg at home and then have to jump on the plane to go down to Plymouth and play on a Monday night. I think a three-game home series is long overdue.”

Coach Raftopoulos’ frustrations with the BBL extends beyond just the play-off format, believing that the championship schedule needs tweaking to make it balanced for all sides.

“The way we format the league – in playing two games at home and one game away and then reversing it every year – I would change it so we play each other once only, or twice. You look at the results: If we played Manchester as early as some other teams played Manchester, we might not have dropped the games we dropped to them. We lost two games to them when they had Nick George in the line-up. He didn’t play against some of the other teams.”

And coach Raftopoulos’ wishes for a better BBL don’t end with the fixture list. The 38-year old hopes that in the future, teams will be able to hold on to star players rather than see them move overseas after a single season in the British top flight.

“An exciting player who was in the league last year was Ayron Hardy and now he’s gone. This year, Leicester have got Couisnard. I’m an opposition coach and I’D like to see Couisnard back in the league because he’s a great player,” said Raftopoulos before calling the lack of player-retention by clubs, ‘frustrating’.

Since joining the Heat in 2010.Coach Raftopoulos is yet to experience life with a set squad, the result of an agreement with Surrey Heat owner, Alison Reeve, to put together a roster within set financial guidelines rather than bankrupt the club for the sake of a single shot at the title. While Coach Raftopoulos is accepting of the situation, he does want to see progress.

“She (Alison Reeve) wants her club to be successful and obviously, as coach, I want the club to be successful. But it’s about trying to put these things in place so we’re not talking about having a new squad each year,” said Raftopoulos before talking about his team for next year.

“We’ve got a clean sheet. The majority of the team have indicated, verbally (that they would like to return). Frank Holmes, Sam Cricelli, the Holmes twins, McLemore have indicated they’d like to come back next season, said Coach Raftopoulos, adding “as much as we’d like to get Joe Chapman or Jeremy Bell, we’ll just stick to what we can afford.”

Whatever the situation with next season’s roster, Heat fans can take comfort in knowing that their leader and third place vote-getter for this year’s Coach of the Year Award, will be at the helm for at least the 2013/14 season.

“I’m contracted for at least another year with an option of an extension for another two years,” confirmed Raftopoulos. “She (Reeve) wants me back and to commit and a lot of it comes down to having the same vision.”