The Guildford Heat: A season review to date

by UK American Sports Fans

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Due to the goings on around the league in and their own sub-par form , it has been rare to hear about the Guildford Heat this season. But a team that is coached by Creon Raftopoulos and containing talent such as Julius Joseph and Drew Lasker, can’t stay under the radar for long. So in anticipation of the Heat making a late season run for the play-offs and in order to keep you up to speed on what’s gone on before, here is everything you need to know about the Heat’s season thus far:

  • The Heat started the season 12-0. Great, right? Not really as it was 12 losses on the bounce. The positive side was that not a single one of those dozen games was a blow-out.
  • Coach Raftopoulos points to a non-existent pre-season as a huge factor in the Heat’s terrible start to the 2011/12 campaign: “We’ve had to start off with not the ideal pre-season that we hoped we could have,” said an honest Raftopoulos. “That made for quick signings rather than being able to go through the process of getting the people you would ideally have. No pre-season was a bad start. Then it’s just been a season that’s been hit by a numbers of injuries and a number of changes.”
  • The Heat’s first win of the season came on the 16th December – more than two months after they tipped off their season on the 1st October. That win was on the road to the Mersey Tigers, 82-76.
  • Their second win was only two games later against BBL new boys, the Durham Wildcats. It was a 99-67 victory – their largest margin in a win this season.
  • 2012 started positively with three wins in a row: The previously mentioned victory over the Wildcats and wins over the Cheshire Jets and Sheffield Sharks. Coach Creon put it down to being bold and making changes:

“We tried to make changes and tried different things to get that (the losses) right. After Christmas we probably got in the guys that we would have liked to have got in in the first place and that was by virtue of guys getting tired of sitting at home waiting for certain money and accept what’s on the table and then we get to full strength.”

  • Creon: “The key to having a successful basketball team, apart from having all the talent in the world, is having that team chemistry. Team chemistry is not just going to happen in a matter of days or weeks. It takes some time to get to that. Unfortunately we don’t have that time so we have situations where we’re in basketball games to win the game and then maybe the opposing team has had that little bit more chemistry and little bit more experience of getting the job done.”

Five big signings take time to adjust, adapt and settle. Just ask the Heat’s in-season signings of Copeland, Lasker, Durant, Holmes and Lewis-Parry.

  • Apparently the ‘win’ column is not the column to watch. Tell them Creon:

“Not many people are looking at the win column, everybody is looking at the loss column. So realistically, getting wins on the board is great but looking at our loss column and looking at the people that are sitting in fifth place at the moment, we’re only kind of like two or three games behind.

“Realistically, if we can get a good run going I don’t think there will be anybody surprised if anybody down from Mersey up to Sharks or Glasgow could finish anywhere in that five, six, seven or eight position.”

  • Before the season, Coach Raftopoulos’ aim was to finish seventh or higher because “anything less, obviously, would be a step back”. And now, with his team on the outside of the play-off picture looking in, what’s the objective? “First and foremost it’s about getting into the play-offs, that’s a priority.” said Raftopoulos.
  • At the time of writing, the Heat have won four out of their last eight which is form they’ll need to improve upon if they want to avoid their second worst league position at seasons end in history (currently it’s 2009/10’s 11th place).