Sheffield Sharks' disappointing campaign ends with early play-off exit despite best efforts of Nick Kern Jr

After winning their first piece of silverware for nine years with the Super League Basketball Cup last season, this term was supposed to be one in which they built on that with more pots and trinkets.

Instead, they have not even come close to troubling the trophy engravers in four separate competitions, this quarter-final exit at the hands of long-time rivals Leicester Riders - one they were never in control of despite coming into the home leg with a three-point advantage and rallying late on - a fitting conclusion to what will feel like a lost season.

They exited the Trophy at the group stage, their Cup defence didn’t get past the first round and in the regular-season championship they were a middling team in a congested mid-table more clogged than a blocked toilet.

That will only add to the sense of what could have been. London Lions are head and shoulders above the rest of Super League Basketball but had Sheffield had the chemistry and fluency they exuded for large parts of last season, the role of leading challenges to the well-backed men from the capital was up for grabs.

Instead it is Leicester who advance to the semi-finals, 97-87 on the night, a margin of seven points overall that flatters the Sharks.

The efforts of Nick Kern Jr aside it was a tough night for Sheffield.

Their three-point advantage from Friday night’s gutsy 81-78 win was always precarious but Leicester wiped it out within seconds and had taken the lead on aggregate within minutes of the first tip.

Down 20-15 at the end of the first, Leicester had stretched it to 27-15 before Kern Jr sparked the resistance with eight straight points, among them a showtime ally-oop from a Rodney Chatman III pass.

But support was in short supply as Sharks missed over 50 per cent of their shots from inside the arc and all eight of their attempts from three-point range in a disjointed first half.

They needed a shift in mentality in the second half but no one could provide it.

Kern Jr (inset), the Sharks standout player finishing with 32 points, kept the home crowd interested but in his eagerness he was occasionally guilty of trying to do too much to lift his team-mates.

Prentiss Nixon finally landed their first three-ball at the team’s 12th attempt with less than a minute left in the third quarter, by which time they were down by 21 points on the night, 18 on aggregate.

Chatman III and Williams sunk three-pointers and Fahro Alihodzic a big slam as Sharks pulled to within nine. But the final buzzer prompted only the start of the inquest into a disappointing campaign. There are conversations to be had for head coach Atiba Lyons and a roster that has at times looked like one with too many egos.

Some familiar faces that have lit up the first three years of the club’s life at the Canon Medical Arena may not be back as Sheffield hit the summer in need of a rethink.