BASKETBALL: El Breogán does not want a round trip ticket

When Breogán de Lugo returned to the Endesa League in 2018, the highest national competition was still known only by the initials of its official name, ACB. It had been twelve years of waiting, more than a decade of always being among the strong teams of the LEB Oro, but never the most, until magical 2018 when he conquered the Princess Cup as host and entered the Endesa League on the fast track as first classified in the regular league. When it was time to say goodbye twelve years earlier, in 2006, Lugo and, by extension, Galicia, lost representation at the highest level in the middle of the second basketball boom in Spain, with the conquest of the world championship from the same hard core of players who in 1999, the year of promotion to the ACB for the people of Lugo, had been the best on the planet in the junior category.

Between the Junior World Cup and the Senior World Cup of the generation that, with the retirements of Carlos Cabezas and Pau Gasol just a few weeks ago, has just made their extinction official, seven years of consecutive presence of Breogán in the ACB, the stage of greatest stability of a history marked with the elevator equipment label, like that of so many others in which, until 2011, the today known as UCAM Murcia was found.

Seven years of legendary names in the competition are remembered at the time, such as super scorer Charlie Bell, with his continuous exhibitions in the 2004-05 season that made him average 27 points per game, including three performances of 40 or more that returned him immediately the post-NBA campaign after a year where he – and his wife, a former Miss Michigan – capitalized on the attention. The following season Pete Mickeal, who lived in Murcia a not very honorable epilogue to his career in the ACB, took the witness as a reference man for Breogán, an opportunity that served as a springboard to play for Baskonia and Barça -previous step through Corea del South- later, as well as center Devin Davis, one of the most athletic of those days.

And seven years that were worth him to finish by dethroning the mythical OAR Ferrol as the greatest historical exponent of Galician basketball in the national territory, an unofficial title that, since his penultimate descent, the Obradoiro has taken over.

Compostela and Lugo live together again in the Endesa League since that ephemeral 2018-19 season of Breogán among the best until their last relegation, and they do so in the second season since 2000-01 with more than one Galician team at the highest level, since, then, CB Ourense played its farewell season in an Endesa League to which it promoted sportingly in 2015. But of course, only sportingly.

A seen and not seen

Thus, the round trip of the 2018-19 season to the Endesa League after twelve years knew little in Lugo. Breogán, who started the campaign as one of the weakest teams, did not give up when trying to redirect the course with different changes in the squad, including the signing of former NBA Ray McCallum, but it was too late, and, giving up some of the last games in an agonizing way, he ended up returning to the LEB Oro.

With three victories in seven games, and much war in defeats, having already faced Barça and Real Madrid, this year’s Breogán has been a positive breath of fresh air for the competition. With a delivered pavilion, which Sito has described as “one of the hottest in the ACB”, the team directed by Paco Olmos was the first leader of the competition.

With a squad made almost against the clock after meeting the innumerable requirements of the ACB for admission, and almost entirely assigned to the BeoBasket agency for their registration, Breogán has one of the most surprising signings of the summer in Europe, the from Bosnian Dzanan Musa, a 22-year-old forward, one of the continent’s greatest promises and who, after two seasons in the NBA, ended his last run with Euroleague champions Anadolu Efes. Now, he seeks to redirect his career in Lugo.