Basketball: Title-winning Capital sides hungry for further success

With three Scottish League flags already fluttering over their collective efforts this season, City of Edinburgh basketball teams are looking to bag even more titles when the final stages of three of the new National League play-offs take place at the Peak Sports Centre in Stirling this weekend.

There is every prospect that the three title-winners, the senior and junior men and senior women, will go on to complete trebles with the Scottish Cup finals still to come over the last weekend of the month.

But the senior men have a weekend off before facing fourth-place finishers Glasgow University a week tonight.

First in action tonight are Edinburgh Kool Kats, who will be at full strength to face Falkirk Fury in the semi-finals, with local rivals Polonia Phoenix, who play St Mirren, also looking to build on their strong finish to the league season. The odds are certainly on a Kats v Phoenix final on Sunday (4pm) and that could be another very close affair.

Edinburgh Kings' junior men's coach Doug Reilly, whose team defeated Aberdeen's Donald Russell Flyers in the quarter-final last weekend, is looking for another big game from North Berwick schoolboys Niall Mackle and Grant MacKay, who were key members of his Scottish junior team who contested last year's Euro B Championship.

Kings' juniors also face Fury in the semi-final tomorrow with the winners likely to face Troon Tornadoes on Sunday.

"Falkirk and Troon will both be looking for revenge after dropping games to us in the league season," said Reilly. "We'll not be taking anything for granted after the strong performance by Flyers, the Division Two champions, against us last weekend."