The Bench Units Podcast

This week we start in Italy, where one team has officially punched their ticket to the Italian League Finals. In Spain, we have a reported sighting of the mythical Third Digit. We also had reports of a 31-0 quarter that has since been disproven. Germany saw a verified 32-0 quarter, as well as a 20-point win in what looks to be a league-defining game between the country's resident titans. Remember...

This week, we see some return fixtures that illustrate how various teams' luck has sustained or changed since the first half of the season. We see games that may be the nail in the coffin for third place in the respective leagues, as well as a pair of fifth-place teams do enough to keep their final four chances alive. As a bonus, we cover the two opening games of the Italian league playoff semifin...

Another guest spot, another Warburton appearance on Bench Units. With arguably the most impressive upset of the season in the books, we are pleased to be joined by the architect of one of the best offensive performances we've seen all year. Lucas stops in to discuss his journey through wheelchair basketball, rising into a legitimate head coach and the unexpected opportunity to take the reins of an...

Another chock-full weekend of games sees us existentially grappling with what the results might all mean in the big picture. Not only did we see multiple huge offensive performances across Spain and Germany, but we saw outcomes that both clarified and confused what we believe to be the tiers of the league standings. We also award The Belt to preview Thursday's episode, where we will be joined by a...

We're appreciative of all our listeners and supporters. We're especially appreciative of the ones who carve an hour out of their day for us at a minute's notice, even when we've been forced to admit they weren't necessarily our first choice. Not too proud to come through for us, CD Ilunion's Gregg Warburton stops in to discuss their EuroCup game against RSV Lahn-Dill, the jewel of the qualifying r...

EuroCup never disappoints. Fresh off finishing top of Group A, a somewhat worse-for-wear James is joined by parallel-game-viewing champion Mark to cover all the action. The guys talk through how the final standings for Groups A, B & C shook out, what this means for the next stage of the tournament and some very worthy All-Star 5 selections! Get full access to Bench Units at benchunits.substack.com...

In the last weekend of domestic league games before the beginning of EuroCup 2023, we saw some teams winding up for a potentially season-defining weekend and some teams winding down for a weekend off. We blitz through some of the less impactful games of the week, publicly shame a couple that didn’t make their stats or live stream available, and get into the five most substantial games of the week....

Those of you who listen regularly will know that one problem we have, when we invite in guests who are taking part in a competition, is that everybody throws out any and all logic and backs themselves. To avoid this happening again, we've roped in somebody who has earned the privilege of not even having to partake in the Champions Cup qualifying round next weekend… Lee Manning stops by to lend his...

We see matchups between two of the quickest players in the world, two of the slowest teams in the world, the first and third place teams in each league, and one offensive player against two defenders at all times. With 11 games of action, we dole out our critiques and award The Belt! Get full access to Bench Units at benchunits.substack.com/subscribe

It’s mediocre to be back. The first full weekend of games did not disappoint. We see a game-winning three-point shot, an apparently well-rested squad execute a 52-point blowout, an almost-upset, a late-in-the-season debut and a too-early-in-the-season battle for playoff positioning. All that covered, we give out the first Bench Units Belt of 2023… Check out the Weekend Round-Up each Tuesday, a gue...

In the last weekend of games before Christmas, we were kind of hoping the teams playing this late into December would put on a DVD and not give us any homework. No such luck! We got a 30-piece filled James MacSorley-bowl showdown, a wild OT game, a game so slow it was like watching a best-of-The-Matrix-bullet-dodges sequence, and yet another gotcha game from Germany; one that we actually had to wa...

Told you we’d get to it. When somebody steps up to meet the moment in the way Jannik Blair did to close out the latest instant classic between RSV Lahn-Dill and RSB Thüringia Bulls, you kind of have to wait until they grant you an interview. Jannik joins us from Australia to talk through the biggest game of the season so far. He gets into Lahn-Dill’s approach to their game (the first against their...

Yeah, we know. This kind of feels like a cop-out. But it will be worth the wait! Please indulge us as we remain tactically oblivious (great name for a future episode) to the elephant in the room when it comes to analysing the games that took place this weekend, we have lukewarm takes on a bunch of games that weren’t the big one, and we will get to that one in due course. In Spain, we saw a couple...

With Germany back in action, we have 11 games to break down across 2 leagues! James and Mark dive into an increasingly muddled Spanish league picture, including some middle-of-the-pack matchups that have left a group of teams with the same record 9 games into the season. In Germany, we see a last-second game-winner that may rattle the standings a little, as well as a team continue to knock on the...

It’s not every day you find out that a world-class shooter is also a not-so-subtle Bench Units superfan and is unreasonably excited at an opportunity to join the show, but that’s exactly where we find ourselves. James & Mark are joined by none other than Arinn Young, who takes us through her transition from able-bodied to wheelchair basketball, winning gold with Team Canada in her debut internatio...

In a quality-over-quantity schedule, we dive witnessed some fascinating results from 6 games in Spain during a weekend off in Germany. The collection of results lead us to the groundbreaking theory that teams with more players, better players, or even more better players than their opponent are more likely to win a game against said opponent. With that revelation out of the way, we answer your que...

However we try and slice it with our middling analysis, no part of basketball is as fun as watching a hot shooting stretch. This weekend, we were treated to a 13-point fourth quarter by Terry Bywater to put the game away, a Cristian Gomez vs Agostin Alejos tough-shot-making showdown and Jorge Salazar unleashed as a lethal mismatch shooter. All of that paled in comparison, however, to Dirk Passiwan...

This week, James is joined by Team USA and Lahn Dill player Rose Hollermann to interview Ayaka, as he still very much does not trust himself to interview someone by himself. Listen in to hear Ayaka talk about her road to finding wheelchair basketball, how it has helped her over the years, what she loves about the sport, and all of her experiences watching and volunteering at games and tournaments,...

After a week off to get to grips with keeping a small human alive, Mark returns to what has been an immaculately-steered Bench Units ship. With a full schedule of games in Spain and an unexpectedly close call in Germany, the guys pick up where they left off and cast their unsolicited opinions across the wheelchair basketball scene. ko-fi.com/benchunits to support the podcast, in exchange for exclu...

This week, James is joined by Mendel Op den Orth from the Dutch national team to talk about the 5 Nations friendly tournament in Madrid last weekend, trying our best to hold down the fort while Mark is taking a break to be a Dad. Mendel joins James in breaking down the games from this weekend, giving their takes on the performances that Spain, France, The Netherlands, Poland and GB put up over the...

One of the past summer's earliest signings signaled that Fundación Aliados Valladolid were setting themselves up to seriously compete in the 2022-23 season, and Clarence “CJ” McCarthy-Grogan has helped them do just that to start the year. CJ stops by and talks about how growing up with limited wheelchair basketball opportunities in Darwin, NT has lead him full circle, from moving away to boarding...

In Spain, we witnessed maybe the most telling week so far in terms of teams wrestling for position in the standings going head-to-head with each other, including a clinic by Amiab against Ilunion and a who's-coming-of-age-first battle between Valladolid and Murcia. Over in Germany, we saw Lahn-Dill stifle yet another worthy foe and Thuringia reel off a 54-9 run across a 15 minute span. ko-fi.com/b...

There is never a dull moment. Well, there's probably a few in this very episode, but it certainly didn't feel like there were any as we watched and analysed 11 games this weekend. In Spain, we saw Ilunion break out another turbocharged quarter that got them through an away-to-Gran Canaria fixture that's traditionally given then some trouble. We also witnessed a final score of 50-42 in a genuinely...

Let's be honest, none of us really understand how EuroCup works. What we do know is that the groups have been drawn, and that means that teams will play each other at some point. To help us fill in the blanks, we bring in the Voice of Wheelchair Basketball in Dylan Cummings. James, Mark and Dylan give their takes on the layout of this year's competition, their bold predictions and answers to your...

What a weekend. Albacete travelled a 16-hour round-trip to warm up for 20 minutes, Mideba Extremadura didn’t even make the journey to their own home venue. While Valladolid showed up , Bilbao made the journey to that game in body only. Over in Germany, Dirk Passiwan was extremely present for 34 out of 40 nail-biting minutes, while the opposing Rhine River Rhinos players seemed to be operating on a...