Le Mans Sarthe Basket

	Le Mans Sarthe Basket
Nickname	MSB / Les tangos; ("The Red Oranges")
Founded	1939
Hall	Antarès ; (basketball: 6,003 places)
Homepage	www.msb.fr
Chairman of the Supervisory Board	Claude Hervé
president	Christophe Le Bouille
Trainer	John-David Jackson
league	LNB Pro A;
	Eurocup;
Colours	Orange / white
home	Away
	successes
	French champions : 1978, 1979, 1982, 2006, 2018 ; French cup winners : 1964, 2004, 2009, 2016 ; French league cup: 2006, 2009, 2014

Le Mans Sarthe Basket is a professional basketball club that was founded in 1993 from the Sporting Club Moderne Le Mans (SCM Le Mans for short) in the French city of Le Mans , which was founded in 1939 . The club is also abbreviated as MSB .

history

SCM Le Mans (until 1993)

In 1938, Bernard Gasnal, who came from Reims , suggested the establishment of a works association, which he already knew from his hometown. In the club founded as Goulou Club Sportif , a football team was initially formed . When such types of clubs were banned by law in 1942, the club was re-established as Sporting Club Moderne or SCM Le Mans for short, where SCM is also an acronym for Société des Comptoirs Modernes , a food manufacturer and the employer of most of the club's members at the time. When Gasnal returned from captivity in 1943 , he was able to set up basketball teams, with the women initially being more successful than the men, who were decimated by World War II . The women won their first national title in 1952.

The men's team was promoted to the top French league in 1963 - National League 1 at the time - followed by their first cup victory in 1964. The head of the team in the 1960s was Christian Baltzer and coach Justy Specker. With player-coach Baltzer, the runner-up and the cup final in 1970 was followed by another runner-up in 1974, until six very successful seasons followed in the period from 1977/78 to 1982/83, where they were either French champions (three times) or runner-up (three times). The first two championships were won under Baltzer, who had taken over as president of Gasnal, and US coach Bill Sweek, a UCLA and NCAA champion who had studied under coaching legend John Wooden . Both resigned in 1979, but subsequent coach Bob Purkisher was able to keep SCM on the road to success and achieve a third title in 1982 before he died in a car accident that summer.

After that one could not celebrate any more successes, but had to let players like Stéphane Ostrowski go because of financial problems, which in 1987 resulted in relegation to the National League 1B (now: Pro B ). In 1990 the championship and the resurgence succeeded there. The club then fought for survival in the top division and in 1993, before the professional organization MSB was founded, only stayed in the league due to the forced relegation of another club.

MSB (since 1993)

In the first season the National League 1A was only by the league expansion and introduction of Pro A are held. The construction of the new Antarès hall, which was inaugurated in September 1995, marked the beginning of new successes for the club. In 1997, with fourth place in the championship, qualification for a European competition was once again achieved for a long time. The 1.70 m tall US American and ex- NBA player Keith "Mister" Jennings was voted best scorer in 1999 in the MSB jersey and Pro A's Most Valuable Player . But MSB stagnated and when Alan Weisz, the coach of MSB's first successes, took over the national team in 2000 , the future seemed uncertain.

Weisz's successor was his previous assistant Vincent Collet, himself a former SCM player in the 1980s and after the rise. Collet was to remain coach until 2008 and was able to revitalize the team. Led by the only 1.63 m tall Shawnta Rogers, they finished third in the championship and Collet was voted the best coach of the 2000/2001 season in the Pro A. The jump to the top, past the dominant teams of EB Pau-Orthez and ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne at the time , did not succeed. In the 2003/04 season you could win the cup again for the first time since 1964 with the best young player Pape Amagou and the best rebounder in the league Rashon Turner and Collet was again the best coach in the league. The following year they were eliminated as the first in the main round in the play-off quarter-finals against SLUC Nancy Basket . In the following 2005/2006 season they did better and reached the play-off final as fifth in the main round. This time they beat Nancy, which meant the fourth championship . In addition, they won the league cup this year. Although Nicolas Batum was elected the league's greatest hopes for young talent ( Meilleur espoir ) in the following two years , it was only enough for top placings, but no titles.

In 2008, the French-Canadian JD Jackson, himself a player at MSB from 1999 to 2006, took over as coach. He succeeded in his first season both cup and league cup victory and Alain Koffi was the best French player in the league. In the seasons 2006/07 to 2008/09 one could qualify three times in a row for the main round of the ULEB Euroleague , but was always eliminated before the round of 16. In the 2009/10 season, the first qualifying round against the German representative Alba Berlin was the end of the line, so you had to start again in the ULEB Eurocup .

Current squad

Squad Le Mans Sarthe in the 2012/2013 season

Attention: The squad information is out of date!
(current season: 2020/2021)

player
No.	Nat.	Surname	birth	size	info	Last club
		Guards ( PG , SG )
4th	United States	Khalid El-Amin	04/25/1979	178		Cibona Zagreb
15th	France	Henri Kahudi	01/08/1991	194
16	France	Thomas Ceci	03/07/1992	197
20th	United States	Cameron Long	12/30/1988	193		BC Siauliai
		Forwards ( SF , PF )
5	France	Charles Kahudi	07/19/1986 #	196
7th	France	Alain Koffi	11/23/1983	205
9	United States	Cuthbert Victor	01/30/1983	197		Spartak Primorye
10	France	Pape Sy	04/05/1988	200		BCM Gravelines
11	France	Dounia Issa	06/03/1981	198		BCM Gravelines
17th	France	Soriah Bangura	10/27/1983	198
18th	France	Kevin Mendy	04/18/1992	200
		Center ( C )
13	Brazil	João Paulo Batista	October 29, 1981	206	A-Nat