Forced to manage the team remotely and resign from his coaching duties last season, Fraser Valley Bandits general manager Kyle Julius still had a major impact on the team’s success on the court.
Article content
Kyle Julius had his fingerprints on all of the 2021 Fraser Valley bandits, even if COVID-19 meant he couldn’t actually be the practical type.
Commercial
This ad has not been uploaded yet, but your article continues below.
Article content
The Bandits coach handed over his coaching duties to Dave Singleton when Julius was forced to stay in Taiwan, where he was training the Formosa Dreamers, due to travel protocols surrounding the team.
The Bandits reached the semifinals of the Canadian Elite Basketball League, where they lost 84-82 to the Niagara River Lions, a year after reaching the championship game.
“It was a great experience for me to build that team. We spent a lot of time building it and then being able to see the team come to life, ”Julius said earlier this year.
“It was very difficult for me personally,” he said of working remotely. “I’m very passionate about the Bandits, passionate about helping and being a part of building the organization, so it was, to say the least, really difficult.”
Commercial
This ad has not been uploaded yet, but your article continues below.
Article content
The organization was so convinced of his work that the Bandits announced they had rehired him for another season on Thursday, which would bring him back for his third year in 2022. He will split his time between the Fraser Valley and Taiwan, where he led the Dreamers to the P.LEAGUE + final in 2020-21, where they lost to the Fubon Braves.
Center Brandon Gilbeck, the CEBL defensive player of the year with the Bandits this season, has signed with the Dreamers for his upcoming season.
Julius joined the Dreamers in 2019 after three successful seasons with the Saigon Heat and a championship campaign with the London Lightning in 2016-17. Julius left the Heat as the most winning coach of all time in team history.
“I am excited to welcome Kyle for another season with the Bandits. He has proven to be an expert in his ability to build a roster of high-level professionals who compete against each other and are dedicated members of the community who are willing to sacrifice whatever it takes in our collective quest for a CEBL championship. ”, Bandits President Dylan Kular said in a press release.
Commercial
This ad has not been uploaded yet, but your article continues below.
Article content
The Bandits posted a 5-2 home record this season, including a 108-84 quarter-final playoff victory in front of a sold-out crowd at the Abbotsford Center in August that sent them to Championship Weekend in Edmonton, where they led. to the CEBL on point. differential (plus seven) and finished second in points (87.7) and steals per game (10).
In the regular season, the Bandits finished fourth overall with a 7-7 record, and thanks to seven-foot Gilbeck, they were first in blocks per game (3.9), total rebounds per game (43.8), second in points per game (85.9), total points differential (plus 14) and offensive rebounds per game (13.9), as well as third in points against per game (84.9).
Julius was forced to watch most of it from abroad, a challenging process for him, especially when it came to dealing with his coaching staff. He had previously worked with Singleton for three years and hoped it would be a smooth transition by handing over coaching duties to his former assistant. But Singleton will not return next season, as Julius and Kular look for a new figure to take the reins.
Commercial
This ad has not been uploaded yet, but your article continues below.
Article content
“We anticipated that he would essentially be able to do things the same way that we always had… The goal was to make sure he kept doing what we had built last year… but it doesn’t always work that way,” he said. “The coaches are their own people; they get into the fire and react differently. This was my first time managing a coaching staff, so it was definitely not easy. There were definitely some obstacles.
“I had ideas or suggestions, but it was difficult to implement them remotely and it was difficult to get the coaching staff to always accept, because you are not there with them and you cannot really show them. It’s always by phone or text … so it was definitely difficult. “
the Bandits will be moving from the Abbotsford Center to the Langley Events Center for next season., which runs from May to August. The team sold out all of its home games last year and was the league leader in attendance in its first season. The two thousand and twenty was played in a bubble in Ontario.
“The Bandits are delighted to continue our growth throughout the Fraser Valley by making our new home at the Langley Events Center,” said Kular. “The LEC has a great history in basketball and sports.”
Reference-theprovince.com