Basketball: Kings bid farwell to their home court

Though both the City of Edinburgh club’s senior teams, Kings and Kats, will have National Play-Off games to come, the men will forfeit home advantage as they are certain to finish fifth and outside the top four.

Kool Kats are lying second to new champions Edinburgh University after completing all their regular season games with a narrow 63-56 win over rivals Polonia Phoenix, who led by a point at half-time.

The Polonia coach Toni Szifris was head of PE at Portobello HS and was mainly responsible for the completion of the excellent basketball facilities in the games hall now destined to be razed to the ground as anew school is being built.

One of his young Kats team was Tracey Phillips, now 42, who was Kats’ top scorer with 20 points yesterday but she was usurped in the veteran stakes by Les Jackson (50) who scored 15 for Polonia.

Tayside Musketeers’ 80-66 home win over Glasgow Rocks at Broughty Ferry yesterday means they will overtake Kats if they beat St Andrews University in their final game.

But their win was marred by another injury to former Kats star Sarah O’Brien, who has come back this season after an ACL operation.

EU easily repeated their Scottish Cup final win over St Andrews at the Pleasance, this time by 95-36.

EU men struggled to overcome Dunfermline Reign beforehand and trailed 14-23 after the first quarter before taking the second 25-15 for a narrow half-time lead.

A 24-5 final quarter saw them home 84-64 and they now need to win both their games this weekend to finish second to champions Boroughmuir Blaze.

Blaze were defeated 91-84 by St Mirren at the Crags after leading by ten after the first quarter and by one with just under three minutes remaining. They could yet meet Saints in the Play-Off final.