WITH the start of the MABL basketball season less than a week away, Bury Blue Devils’ player-coach Mike Nichols is hoping his side can can go one further than their third-place finish in last season’s Championship, by gaining promotion to the Premiership.

The title contenders have enjoyed a successful pre-season campaign and, despite losing experienced players Charlie Cuthbert to Horwich, and Graham Greene to Bury-based Lancashire Spinners, Nichols is confident his side are capable of mounting a serious challenge this year if they can remain focused.

“Basketball in Bury is going from strength-to-strength with three sides in the area.

“We are one of the top teams in our division and we’re hoping to finish in the top two. We are aiming for the play-offs,” he said.

“We’ve got our squad together. We have lost a couple of players in Charlie and Graham but everyone else is back this year.

“In order to get into that top two we need to be stronger at the end of games.

“There were a couple of matches last season where we lost a bit of focus towards the end of close games so this year we’ve been working a lot on closing games out and making the right decisions at the right time.”

The Blue Devils coach is, however, wary of both Preston Pride and Bolton who he is tipping to be their closest rivals this season.

“I think our main rivals will be Preston,” said Nichols.

“They were in Division One last year but they are an academy team so they are young and doing really well. They blitzed everyone last season and probably should be in the Premiership.

“Bolton are also a strong side and have the right players. On their day they can be a threat to anyone.”

The Blue Devils have played pre-season friendly games against fellow Bury side the Mavericks, who are now sharing the court at Bury Grammar School, and Nichols believes this arrangement suits both clubs.

“The Mavericks had trouble with their court last year,” he added.

“The Phillips Sports For All Centre were trying to push things towards netball so they were limiting the Mavericks’ court time there.

“By sharing our court they benefit because they are training with guys that are more experienced and we benefit as we have different kinds of players to play against, so we are learning different ways of approaching a game.

“The Mavericks play in Division One which means they are in the division below us, so there is no rivalry.

“It makes it easy as we train on the same days, share the same court and it gives us an idea of where they are up to and where we are in terms of preparation for our games.

“We are a more defensive-minded team and pre-season has demonstrated that that’s coming on really well.

The Mavericks play their home games on Tuesday nights and the Blue Devils will be hosting games on Friday nights.

“The league have agreed to alternate our home games with the Mavericks’ so that there are no clashes,” Nichols said.

The Blue Devils open their season with a trip to local rivals Stockport Atlas on Tuesday and Nichols is confident his side will have little trouble in winning the match.

He added: “If the rumours are true that they’ve signed Danny Craven, who played for the Manchester Giants, then he could be a good addition for them.

“However, I can’t see any other problems for us.

“We beat them pretty convincingly last season and we’ve strengthened our game with different offence sets as well.”