ALTHOUGH there’s still plenty of action to come, DCU Saints have been among the early pacesetters in Irish basketball’s SuperLeague North-ern Conference. The talented squad are mostly Irish, with one Latvian and two Amer-icans also making their mark.
Captain and Irish international Emmet Donnelly – whose two Ireland-capped brothers also turn out for DCU Saints – tells Metro Eireann: “We’re actually out of the cup at the moment, but we’re still in the running for the Northern Conference [title] and looking to do well in the league, and maybe win the league playoff. It finishes up the middle of March, so if you make the playoffs you’d go to the second-last weekend of March.”
Donnelly says that from around the age of 12, basketball has been his main sporting focus, despite still being a keen soccer player and Gaelic footballer. And the Irishman believes that this country’s increasing diversity is something the basketball scene here is benefiting from.
“Absolutely. It’s bringing it to a much wider audience here in Ireland – there is a demand for it from people emigrating into the country, especially from eastern Europe where it’s massive,” he says. “Of course the African population are quite into it – you see them on Mountjoy Square and that, and the oriental population as well for that matter. You can kind of see it already in the underage basketball scene.”
DCU Saints’ guard Martins Provizors, from Liepaja in Latvia, is the perfect example of how work-related immigration is impacting on Irish basketball. At nearly 6 foot 8 inches tall, Provizors was prised away from his first sporting love – soccer – by basketball scouts in his homeland.
Eager to keep up his game, before moving to Dublin six months ago he sent an e-mail to DCU Saints enquiring about getting involved. The 20-year-old tells Metro Eireann: “I went to some training and decided to stay.”
Despite a busy work schedule, Provizors says he tries to make time for basketball, and finds the quality and unpredictability of the league to his liking.
“In Latvia there are four top teams, they win all the competitions – they have a big budget. In Latvia, it’s professional, but DCU Saints could play in Latvia and they could be in sixth or seventh place,” he explains. “As well, over here in Ireland the first place in the table can lose to the last, it’s really interesting here. You can’t say what the result will be the next time.”
Team-mate Kenny Gamble, from Florida, USA, follows a long line of US basketball players who’ve plied their trade in Ireland. The American compliments the “no ego” mentality of his team-mates, and says this is his sixth season playing in Ireland, having previously played professionally in Germany and back in the US.
In terms of his future, Gamble predicts that it may be sooner rather than later that he returns to Florida.
“I’ve been playing for 11, 12 years professionally, so this is it for me,” he says. “In the last 13 years, I’ve only been home for two Christmases. Since I graduated from high school all my years in college I’ve been away.
“All we have left is winning the league and the conference, so hopefully we can do that,” says Gamble of his hopes for the remainder of the season.
