Glasgow Rocks ended up in third place when the shutters came down on the British Basketball League season last night as a 90-57 victory over Mersey Tigers secured the club's highest finish in three years.
Their attentions will turn to landing the BBL play-off title and ending a decade-long silverware drought. The standings have paired the Scots against Plymouth Raiders in next weekend's two-legged play-off quarter-finals.
Facing a Mersey side who came bottom of the pile, Rocks player-coach Sterling Davis had the luxury of handing his regular starters extra rest but his second string had more than enough in reserve. "Third isn't where you want to be but with Leicester and Newcastle stretching it out at the top, I challenged the guys to finish as high as possible and we did a good job of responding to that in the second half of the season," Davis said.
"If we play the way we can do, I think we're a team that can make some noise."
Although the Tigers built a surprise early lead, a 19-1 surge from Glasgow ruthlessly extinguished their hopes and another 11 unanswered points in the second period gave Davis the green light to conserve energies. With Gareth Murray firing a game-high 18 points, and Jonny Bunyan adding 16, the Rocks rolled clear in the fourth quarter. The result made history, but it is a mark that Mersey will want to live down. With their 35th consecu-tive defeat, itself a record, the Liverpool side became the first top-flight club to end the campaign without a single victory to their name.
"The owners have promised me they're going to put more money into the team," coach Tom Walsh revealed. "And at our home games, we've getting the crowds back up – and that's without winning a game. That's because we're out in the community.
"That was missing before, when the Tigers were just throwing money at players. Now we still have the top part, but we're building foundations underneath, as well."
Elsewhere, league cham-pions Leicester ended up 10 points clear of second-placed Newcastle by beating the Eagles 86-75.
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