Sheffield Sharks fuelled by 'what might have been' of last season as new BBL campaign tips off against London Lions

Sharks fought to a second-placed finish in the BBL Championship last term, their highest finish in the league for nearly a decade, but injuries to two key players ultimately saw them crash out of the play-offs in the first round.

Antwain Johnson missed the last two weeks of the season and Rodney Glasgow Jnr the second leg of the play-off match-up with Glasgow Rocks, in which a Sharks team minus those two key scorers from its rotation eventually buckled in the fourth quarter of the second leg.

Johnson has not returned to Sheffield this season but Glasgow has been promoted to captain, and five months on is driven by the frustration of how last season ended.

"Defeat still lingers,” says the 29-year-old point guard. “I was proud of our team, but when I went down and when Antwain went down, you feel like you let the team down. Injuries happen, it was just bad timing.

"We had a real shot at winning the championship, it left us with a sense of what might have been.

"We had a very special group last year so for us to not see it through because of things out of your control, that’s the most frustrating thing.”

Tonight’s opponents London Lions are expected to compete for all four domestic trophies on offer given they have made the most of the abolition of the salary cap in the BBL to fund their campaign in Europe.

But emboldened by the sense of injustice at how last season ended, Glasgow is determined not to let chance undo the god work Sharks have put in for the season ahead.

"It's a good thing it happened because now for this whole season it’s giving us more focus,” he says.

"My approach now is to take it one game, one day at a time so that when we get to the play-offs we’re healthy and competitive.

"I’m more motivated than ever to do that.”

For head coach Atiba Lyons, the defeat in May did not linger as long as it has with his captain because he saw plenty in the way his team fought to inform him of how they will compete in the 2022/23 campaign.

"It was tough but under the circumstances we lost key players and to still be leading them midway through the second leg showed a lot of character of the team and gave me a lot of confidence to re-sign and retain as many as a I could,” says Lyons, who was true to his word by bringing back Glasgow, Kipper Nichols, Bennett Koch and Jordan Ratinho among others.

“It was a good loss in that it gave me a lot of information and confidence in the team I had to retain.

"We managed to make a good thing out of a bad situation.”

Sharks versus London Lions tips-off tonight (Friday) at 7.30pm at Ponds Forge, and is live on Sky Sports.