UCC and UCD looking to get off to winning starts

This weekend will see both C&S UCC Demons and UCD Marian play their first games of the 2013/2014 Basketball Ireland’s Men’s Premier League.

As the only two teams in the Premier League to not play in last weekend’s opening round both sides are geared up and ready to go. For the cork side they will make the journey to Limerick to take on last year’s league champions, UL Eagles. The Dublin southsiders will face off with old rivals Killester in UCD.

This season UCD Marian will be guided by head coach Ioannis Ciapakis as he embarks on his first season coaching in the Men's Premier League. Ciapakis, a Greek native, comes to UCD having previously acted as assistant coach for DCU Mercy in the Women's Premier League under head coach Mark Ingle.

The southsiders begin this season with only four players from last year present which will bring some teething difficulties to their set up. Ciapakis is aware of the challenges they will face this weekend, "You can tell that the Killester players have all played together before, you can see their chemistry. Although they have a new coach this season, Jonathan Grennell, he is a past player of that team so he is very familiar with the players and their style. I think it stands to them."

Better situation
Ciapakis continued, "I am happy with the direction we are moving but to be honest, Killester might be in a better situation than us, right now. We have a lot of work to do still and I think it will be another three or four weeks before we are where we want to be."

Killester come into the game after a convincing win over Dublin Inter the week before.

Killester favourite, Michael Westbrooks who ranked in the top scorers for his side last week, is looking forward to the game. "As a team, our confidence is continuing to grow as we know what we are capable of."