BBL Play-Off Quarterfinals Now Underway

The penultimate part of the BBL season is now underway after the Play-Off Quarterfinals kicked off on Thursday and will run until this weekend.

The Plymouth Raiders and the Glasgow Rocks kicked off the festivities in an exciting match in which the fourth-seeded Raiders escaped with a narrow 84-79 win in the first-leg of their quarterfinal matchup.

Glasgow looked poise to escape with the win as they took control of the game, but not until the Raiders catch fire in the final period to erase the five-point third-quarter deficit.

With them dominating the boards, the Raiders suddenly got the upper hand with a huger 13-4 run and they never looked back to take a five-point aggregate lead heading into their second-leg showdown on Sunday.

Jeremy Bell spearheaded the offensive attack of the Raiders with 25 points, while Paul Williams did a lot of damage as he racked up 19 points and 14 rebounds, which was simply too much for the Rocks to absorb.

Action resumes today with the top-seeded Newcastle Eagles facing the Guildford Heat and the Sheffield Sharks going up against the Leicester Riders.

The Eagles, who finished the BBL championship season with a 23-7 record, will start their drive to win another silverware this season after grabbing the BBL Cup, BBL Trophy, and BBL Championship regular season title and guard Andrew Bridge expressed their excitement.

“We’re definitely looking forward to it, Bridge said. “It’s been a long two or three weeks in which we’ve been finishing off the league season after winning it, and we’re itching to get into a game that means something.”

On the other hand, the second-seeded Worcester Wolves will start their own title drive on Saturday against the Cheshire Jets followed by all of the second-leg matches on Sunday.