National League: Zárate Basket will replace the historic Atenas in the top flight

While the final of the National Basketball League (LNB) takes place between Quimsa, from Santiago del Estero, and Boca Juniors, AthensFrom Cordoba, The biggest Argentine basketball team already has a replacement in the elite after its historic decline: Zárate Basket. The Buenos Aires team became champion of the Argentine League (LA) by beating Cordoba in the decisive series Ameghinofrom Villa Maria, for 3-2 y will play for the first time at the highest level in the country. In the fifth and final game he won by 82-65 as a visitor in the Salón de los Deportes and gave the coup, after failing to be crowned as a local in the fourth game.

Thus, shortly after the end of the 2022/23 season, the 20 clubs that will participate in the next National League, which will begin in the last quarter, are determined. In addition to the finalists of the current championship and the recently promoted one, the Institute (Córdoba), Gimnasia y Esgrima (Comodoro Rivadavia), Argentino (Junín), Obras Sanitarias, Regatas Corrientes, San Lorenzo, La Unión (Formosa), Communications (Mercedes , Corrientes), Olímpico (La Banda, Santiago del Estero), Riachuelo (La Rioja), Peñarol (Mar del Plata), Platense, San Martín (Corrientes), Unión (Santa Fe), Oberá Tenis (Misiones) and Ferro Carril Oeste .

The Greek was relegated because they were the worst team in the regular season and could not beat San Lorenzo in a playout that was defined in five games. The only club that until this season played all the tournaments and the one that was crowned champion the most times, with nine crownsbroke the numbers –for the worse– and was relegated to the Argentine League for the first time.

with four coaches in the campaign, Athens played 43 partiesof which won 7 and lost 36. As a visitor, they only beat Unión on the second date of the first round, in which they placed last with 5 wins and 33 losses. At the same time, went 23 straight matches without wins, the longest losing streak in 38 years of participation in the elite. His best moment came with the three successes on dates 32, 33 and 34, over San Martín, Unión and Oberá, all at the Carlos Cerutti Sports Center.

With those numbers, more than negative, he knew very early that he was going to play the series for permanence, and even so he did not prepare himself sportingly or psychologically. The Córdoba team participated in that distressing instance for the third time in five tournaments, and this time the coin fell on the other side. left behind 38 years of uninterrupted participation and stars earned in 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991/’92, 1997/’98, 1998/’99, 2001/’02, 2002/’03 and 2008/’09.

Without Athens in the next season, the League will no longer have a club that has competed in all its achievements.

Zárate Basket is the team from the city located about 80 kilometers north of Buenos Aires, which is reached by the Pan-American highway. His national participation began in the 2017/18 season in the Federal Tournament, after receiving the place that the Independiente de Zárate club won with second place in the Provincial that year.

The initiative to have a representative in Argentine basketball came from the local administration, and after an agreement with the Zárate-Campana Basketball Association (ABZC), Red’s participation in the Buenos Aires championship was financially supported. Once Independiente achieved promotion, Unión Ciudad de Zárate was born, which in this sport calls itself “Zárate Basket”.

In the first experience in the Federal Tournament, in the 2017/18 season, the team led by Oscar Comelli reached the quarterfinals of the Southern Conference with a squad made up mostly of local players. After a couple of tournaments in which he established himself in the category, in 2021, already with several reinforcements and without so much presence of Zarateños on the squad, he made the leap to the Argentine League (LA). To the surprise of many, in his first foray into the second category he was a finalist; lost the defining series against Independiente de Oliva.

With an increasingly important backing in the city, and shortly after debuting as a local at the DAM Stadium (by Diego Armando Maradona), built on the waterfront overlooking the Zárate-Brazo Largo bridge, Zárate Basket struck and reached the LNB in ​​the hand of the trainer Manuel Anglese and with Facundo Pascolatt as the highest reference, because he was part of the squad in all divisions, even in the Provincial when the team was Independent.

THE NATION