'Winning solves everything': Atiba Lyons urges Sheffield Sharks to focus on title race amid tumultuous time for British basketball

A month ago, everything in the Sharks’ garden was rosy, riding an 11-game win-streak that included claiming a first trophy for nine years in the Cup final, and matching leaders London Lions in the title race.

Fast forward a month and Sharks have endured a tumultuous time.

On the court they have lost three games to fall two wins behind the Lions. Off it, they have been embroiled in a racism storm, the allegations made by their owner Vaughn Millette leading to his resignation as chairman of the league and a boycott of games by league officials. Lyons also released a statement claiming he had been the victim of unconscious bias.

SLB referees are still not officiating Sharks games, and for the team’s trip to Bristol Flyers on Tuesday night, the club is expecting to once again be refereed by a group of Canadian officials brought in by the league for Sheffield’s games.

On top of that, the civil war between the league and the governing body has only worsened, with the British Basketball Federation last week awarding the long-term licence for the running of the professional division to GBB League Ltd, an external group of investors led by Marshall Glickman, former acting chief executive of Euroleague Basketball.

SLB responded by saying the “tender process undertaken by the BBF was illegal and unjust” and that the nine clubs that make up Super League Basketball “do not legally require a BBF license to continue to operate the professional basketball league in Britain”.

Amid all that noise and disruption, Sharks have still picked up three wins against their three losses, but in the pursuit of London Lions can afford precious few slip-ups.

“The players have been resilient,” said Lyons. “They’re a very competitive bunch and their desire to win is great, which is one of the things as a coach that sometimes you don’t have.

“So that’s always promising. We’ve just got to make sure we keep going forward. If we plateau and are not looking at improving or being aggressive, then we’ll have a tough time of it. So we have to maintain that focus and hunger.”

Lyons praised his team’s energy in their 88-69 victory over Bristol at the Canon Medical Arena on Sunday, and is expecting the same opponents to replicate that in the west country on Tuesday, in a game rearranged from the referees’ strike.

“It’s tough playing a team back-to-back like that so we’ve got to make sure we learn from past mistakes and come out with the right energy,” said Lyons, whose team still has to play London twice on their home court before the season ends on April 27.

“We had to get ourselves back focused because there’s not much basketball left and we can’t afford to drop many games. We cannot take our eye off the ball this late in the season.

“We’re in the race still, winning always solves everything so we’re just going to concentrate on ourselves.”