Basketball Cuppers preview
This year's mens Basketball Cuppers should be a fiercely contested competition. The matches will be played throughout Trinity term, with the games starting on Wednesday of first week.
Unlike most other sports, Basketball Cuppers consists of an initial round-robin group phase with the best eight teams qualifying for the quarter finals. This guarantees each team several matches to find their feet and will favour teams who hit their stride as the end of the group stages approaches.
This year there are 23 teams split into three groups. Group B looks as though it will be the toughest with defending champions St. Hugh's favourites to win with Blues star Mike Causey, and Twos players Ole Frahm and Jamie Inglis. The toughest competition for St. Hugh's is likely to come from St. Peter's, bolstered by Blues Francisco Gomes and Antoine Artiganave, who will be looking to get their compaign off to a flying start against the champions.
Univ should be the strongest team in group C, although two other teams will provide them with stern opposition. College league champions New, whose success will depend on the form of their Twos players Alex Anslow and Oliver Morrison, due to the presence of possibly the strongest and most talented squad in the competition. Balliol, headed by Blues captain Graham Ewen will also be challening for one of the top two spots which guarantees a place in the knockout phase.
The top three places in group A look set to be fought for by Pembroke, with a strong squad, enhanced by Blue Simon Cotton. Brasenose with Blue Angelos Bertsatos, and Teddy Hall with Twos Rohan Brown and Twinsen Cui.
Since each college is only allowed to have two Blues or Twos on court in any combination, the best teams will be those with enough depth to always have three other talented players and those with good team spirit will probably flourish.
The loss of the Varsity match still rankles amongst the Blues players , so all will be looking to prove a point in Cuppers.
29th Apr 2004