KAPOULAS HAS PRIZES ON MIND

“Our goal is to win championships.” Bristol Flyers’ coach Andreas Kapoulas is thinking big.

His side came into the BBL last season and surprised a lot of people as they claimed a Play-Off spot in their debut campaign, but Kapoulas is not getting carried away by that success.

“Winning a championship is our long-term goal,” he clarified. “It’s what we aim to do, it is a long-term process. It won’t happen right away, and we’re fully aware of that.”

The Flyers claimed the eighth and final spot last season and Kapoulas has come into this season looking to improve on it.

“We want to get better all the time; we don’t want to get stagnant and we don’t want to lose momentum,” he said.

“We can’t afford to stay stagnant; we have to keep moving forward.”

The Flyers are finding things a little tougher this time around and have won just three of their opening nine Championship games, but in recent weeks things have been picking up with three wins in their last four. They’ve also got a BBL Cup Quarter-Final to look forward to on Sunday at Cheshire Phoenix.

“We are starting to build some momentum and everything is starting to come together,” said Kapoulas.

“This has been the season we’ve had the most changes in our team.

“The same group was together for like five or six years and this was the first year we had a few changes on the roster.

“So it was always going to take longer to build momentum.”

As the club continue to look to grow, there will no doubt come a day when the Flyers will need to find a bigger arena to play in. Their home venue at SGS College is one of the smallest venues in the BBL but Kapoulas says the place has its advantages.

Towards the end of last season the sold out signs were a common sight as fans flocked to see the Flyers in their bid to reach the Play-Offs and while home wins have been harder to come by this time around, the place is still rocking on game nights.

“At the moment, it’s the right place for us,” he said.

“It’s just a great atmosphere here.

“It’s not one of the biggest places in the BBL, but it’s definitely noisy and the players feed off the energy of the crowd at every home game.”

Whatever the future holds, Kapoulas is both grateful and excited to be patrolling the side-lines every week as coach of the Flyers.

After many successful seasons in the National League, Kapoulas believed the Flyers would be able to successfully make the jump to the BBL and to his credit, he’s been proved right.

“We needed to develop further as a club and it was just the right time,” he said.

“We felt we’d had a great seven years in Division One and then an opportunity came along to join Bristol Sport.

“I think there’s a real bright future here and we’re building a super club here with football, rugby and basketball.

“We’re under the same umbrella as Bristol City and Bristol Rugby, and their support is huge.”

He added, “Bristol Sport and SGS College made it possible for us to be in the BBL.

“We have to give them both a lot of credit as without that support we would not be here.”