Two Brits, One Orange Ball Podcast

In today's show, we're joined by co-host of the BBL Show, Jay Marriott, a former player and coach in the BBL as well as Hungry and several other areas in Europe and the US. Jay is soon to become part of a new Gloucestershire basketball franchise who have hopes of growing to become a BBL team after securing investment from Gloucester City co-owner Alex Petheram. Alongside Newcastle Eagles great Drew Lasker, Jay started The BBL Show in partnership with the league to bring light to its teams and the many untold stories of its players, coaches and key members.

In today’s episode we’ll cover the rise of the Knicks and fall of the Bulls and BBL news before being joined by BBL MVP candidate - Geno Crandall of the Leicester Riders. We’ll  talk about his former team Gonzaga’s run in March Madness, his season so far with the Riders who are very close to winning the league title, as well as the upcoming BBL playoffs.

Welcome to part two of episode 17 of the Two Brits, One Orange Ball podcast with Bulls Insider for NBC Sports Chicago, K.C. Johnson. In this second part of the episode, we’ll cover Derrick Rose’s tenure with the Chicago Bulls, including going into detail about what it was like to cover his many injuries and the split of public opinion about whether he should play or not after being out for nearly a year having torn his ACL in the 2012 playoff match-up against the Sixers. We’ll cover Jimmy Butler’s fall out with the Chicago Bulls, Luol Deng and what he meant to the Bulls organisation - as well as going deeper into K.C.’s London 2012 experience where he met the late Jimmy Rogers after turning up at Brixton Rec. And finally, we’ll speak with K.C. about covering the second Bulls three peat and how reporting on the ground at the time differed from what we were shown in the Last Dance documentary. So let’s dive back in to part two.

In this episode, we’ll be speaking to K.C Johnson, someone we very much look up to who has spent 19 years reporting on the Bulls for the Chicago Tribune before moving to NBC Sports Chicago in 2019 where he works as a Bulls Insider and co-hosts the Bulls Talk podcast.  K.C. has been working for the Bulls since the 80s, reporting on everyone from Jordan to D Rose, Luol, Jimmy Butler and now, as he states in his Twitter bio - Denzel Valentine.

We finally took Alex Owumi’s advice and we’re very excited to welcome owner and head coach of the London Lions, Vince Macaulay onto the podcast today. In the podcast we’ll cover everything from the recent BBL Cup loss to the Newcastle Eagles after being short handed due to six positive covid tests in the Lions camp. The harshness of being kicked out of the FIBA Cup as a result, before diving into the marketing and comms side of things and looking ahead to the rest of the season and beyond for Vince and the Lions.

Mikey Murphy is the New York Knicks Beat Writer for Empire Sports Media, a New York based media outlet. When Empire Sports Media was first created in 2017, it was just an idea. Two years later, they are one of the most read independent blogs in New York, garnering over two million views per month. In this episode we’ll talk about the hopes surrounding the Knicks season with the additionals of coach Thibs, draft picks Obi Toppin & Quickley and President Leon Rose. We’ll look back at some of the Knicks most historical moments and James will try his best not to make any Knicks digs throughout…

Ian Macleod is in his second year as the Newcastle Eagles head coach, having taken up the helm after Fab Flournoy, the former player/coach of the Eagles left to join Nick Nurse's staff on the Toronto Raptors in 2018. Fab’s input helped the Newcastle Eagles become the winningest franchise in BBL history - winning the treble three times since 2005, with star players such as himself, Charles Smith and Darius Defoe. The Eagles record boasts 7 BBL Championships, 6 BBL Playoffs wins, 5 BBL Cup wins and 7 BBL Trophy wins. In addition to this, Fab leads the Eagles in all-time, assists, blocks, rebounds and steals so not a bad mentor to have! When Charles Smith retired in 2016, this left the door open for the newly recruited PG Ramon Fletcher to take the helm for the clubs new era. Coach Macleod was an academy coach with the Eagles for over a decade before being given the chance to become an assistant coach by Fab in 2013, the year before Fletcher came to the team. Macleod had ambitions to become a coach from the age of five, initially in football but this quickly transitioned to basketball. In this podcast, we’ll discuss his successful first year campaign, winning the BBL Trophy against the up and coming NBL team, the Solent Kestrels - where he became one of very few coaches to win silverware in his first season. We’ll discuss what it’s like to build a team in the BBL, where year to year contracts are the norm and take a trip down memory lane to discuss his basketball journey as well as his aspirations for this year’s side, who have come out strong in the BBL Cup with a 3-2 record.

Roy Owen is a former BBL point guard who most recently played for the Bristol Flyers across seven seasons. He was part of the Flyers team that lifted themselves from division three to reach the top flight league in british basketball, the BBL, alongside Bristol basketball legend Greg Street and Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye who went on to play in Division on college for the Bradley Braves. Before his time with the Flyers Roy played at the University of Worcester, having started out in basketball Coventry and Solihull. Along with stars of his Bristol team like Greg Street, Roy became a role model to many young basketball players in Bristol and Worcester and in 2018, he decided to move away from the professional game and into teaching and coaching. Roy still plays for the Bristol Flyers second team and is one of the biggest Lakers fans I know. We’ll be catching up with him about the NBA season, his reaction to their championship team and delve into his journey in basketball from Coventry to the BBL and his ongoing journey in coaching.

Before he left for Chicago, Joe was well-known as one of the leaders in digital content production in the British Basketball League during his seven+ years at the Leicester Riders - producing everything from graphics to photography and videography. Earlier this year, he left the UK to join one of the most widely renowned organisations in sports in the Chicago Bulls as Manager of Digital Content. Joe’s journey in basketball started as a player, where he progressed to a point where he was playing for the Loughborough University 1st team and exploring scholarship options in the United States. At this point he was very self aware of his ability and prospects and felt that a full-time career as a player was not the direction he wanted to pursue - instead deciding to work in operations for the Leicester Riders. We pick up with Joe to see how his year has been in what must have been a whirlwind; working on the All-Star game in Chicago in his second week on the job with the Bulls, dealing with the fallout of the league shutting down in the mist of the coronavirus outbreak and what his work life has morphed into under these new and unique conditions. We get his thoughts on everything from the player movement in the BBL to the London Lions chances in the Basketball Champions League, how he balanced roles with Loughborough University, Deng Camp, FIBA 3x3 and his goals for his role in digital content for the Chicago Bulls.

In the second part of episode 11 with Alex Owumi, we talk about how Alex narrowly lost out on being drafted by the Boston Celtics and delve further into to his decision to leave Georgetown, a move which almost led him to playing with GB great - Pops Mensah Bonsu at GW. Alex talks to us about how his experience of horrific racial discrimination with his team in Macedonia led him to signing with Al-Nasr a team owned by Colonel Gaddafi. He speaks candidly about extremely harrowing experiences in Libya, when the Libyan Civil War broke out - which if you’re sensitive to traumatic events, I’d advise you give this episode a miss. Finally Alex concludes the episode by speaking further about his tenure in the BBL and his plans to turn his book, Qaddafi’s Point Guard into a film.  And much, much more!