City's basketball side starts the season with three new players

The city's men's basketball team begins its league season at home on Saturday evening with three new players in the squad and the stated aim of reaching the play-off final. The team finished fourth last season and lost in the semi-finals by five points over two legs.

The club has signed a point guard and two forwards over the summer. Two players have left, one of them last season's top scorer, who averaged 17 points a game.

What has changed

The head coach, now in her third season, said the squad was deeper than a year ago and that she expected to use ten players in most games instead of eight. Pre-season results support that: the team won five of its six warm-up matches, and no player was on court for more than 28 minutes in any of them.

Defence was the weakness last season. The team conceded 74 points a game, the third-highest figure among the top six. The two new forwards were signed mainly to improve rebounding.

The season ahead

The league has twelve teams, each playing 22 games before the play-offs in April. The first six home games are on Saturdays at seven in the evening.

The club has sold 1,450 season tickets, a record, and the sports hall holds 2,100. Tickets for single games go on sale on the Monday before each match, and under-sixteens are admitted free with an adult.