Canterbury Academy Crusaders win maiden U18 Men’s title with ‘final Crusade’

Image Credit: Basketball England

Canterbury Academy Crusaders won their first junior national title with a 91-42 rout over London United in the Under-18 Men’s final on Sunday at the National Basketball Performance Centre.

In campaign dubbed ‘the final crusade’ after Basketball England’s controversial Diploma in Sporting Excellence (DiSE) re-tender that saw Canterbury – one of the founding members of the Elite Academy Basketball League (EABL) – unsuccessful in their application to remain in the U19 competition from next season, the Kent-based club had the perfect finish to a season to remove any doubt of their ability to produce and develop talent.

Despite not being in the EABL from 2024-25, they will remain in the junior national league competitions where they will now look to defend their title.

They held London United to just 20% shooting from the field (and 10% from three) to secure what will be up there amongst the largest margins of victory ever in a junior national final.

“A huge weight (has been lifted),” Head Coach Adam Davies said after the game.

“It’s been the final crusade; we’ve been kicked out the EABL, rightly or not, we wanted to show everyone that we shouldn’t have been to be honest with you. Hopefully that was it, the final crusade for us, obviously we’re still playing but we felt like it was unfair and unjust that we’re not going to be in the EABL and so we’ve used this season to make a point that we can develop guys and win basketball games.”

Tim Oboh picked up MVP honours after a dominant weekend finishing with 28 points and 23 rebounds on 12/19 shooting, having had a 30-point, 23-rebound semi-final performance.

Ludlow Hewson with 23 points, nine rebounds and five assists and Shem Onadeko had 19 points and six assists.

Junior Cesar-Sanchez Falette led London United with 17 points but was the only player in double figures.

Box score.

Do you like our work?

We have a tiny favour to ask. In 2018 we set out to make Hoopsfix sustainable by building our relationship directly with our readers. Up until now, Hoopsfix has been creating editorials, videos and podcasts to provide sorely missing coverage of the British game and its distinct culture and community.

We have funded Hoopsfix with our freelance work creating basketball media, but sadly that means not only does it fall behind our client’s priorities, but some of those clients are the same organisations we need to report objectively on putting us in a conflicted position.

We want to devote more time to our mission of helping British basketball reach its potential, and produce even more content for the basketball community by making Hoopsfix a sustainable 100% independent business funded directly by our readers through Patreon.

If everyone who enjoys our content chose to support us, our future would be much more secure. For as little as $3 per month, you can support Hoopsfix – and it only takes a minute.

We are tremendously honoured and humbled to have a community of people who value what we do, and we look forward to being at the forefront of the British game as it continues to evolve.

Support Hoopsfix