Steve Bucknall

Steve Bucknall
Player information
Full name	Stevenson Lee Bucknall
Nickname	Steve
birthday	17th March 1966 (age 54)
place of birth	London (ENG), United Kingdom
size	198 cm
position	Shooting Guard / Small Forward
college	UNC Chapel Hill
Clubs as active
1983–1984 Crystal Palace 1985–1989 UNC Tar Heels ( NCAA ) 1989–1990 Los Angeles Lakers 1990–1991 Sunblest Sunderland 1991 Miami Tropics ( USBL ) 1991–1992 BG Stuttgart-Ludwigsburg 1992–1993 ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne 1993–1994 Le Mans Sarthe Basket 1994–1995 Thames Valley Tigers 1995–1996 London Towers 1996–1998 Iraklis Thessaloniki 1998–1999 Fabriano Basket 1999 Zuchetti Reggio nell'Emilia 1999–2001 London Towers 2001–2002 00000 00000 Aris Thessaloniki 2002 Birmingham Bullets 2002–2004 Iraklis Thessaloniki 2004–2005 Olympique d'Antibes 2005–2006 Leicester Riders00000
National team 1
1990-2002	England	91
Clubs as coaches
2005–2007 Leicester Riders ( AC ) 2007–2008 London Capital Since 2010 England (U18) 0000
1 Status: 2006

Stevenson Lee "Steve" Bucknall (born March 17, 1966 in London ) is a British basketball coach and former player. After studying in the United States , Bucknall first played for one season in the most highly endowed US professional league, the NBA , before continuing his career in Europe. In addition to clubs in his native England, he played in Germany , France , Italy and especially for Iraklis and Aris in Greek Thessaloniki . At the end of his career, he won a bronze medal with the English national team at the 2006 Commonwealth Games and was then coach of the Capital from his hometown of London in the British Basketball League (BBL). Since 2010 he has been working for the English association as a coach of the male U18 youth team.

Career

In his youth he played for the youth teams of Crystal Palace and completed his first appearances in the men's team. In 1984 he went to the United States and completed a preparatory year at the Governor Dummer Academy (now known as The Governor's Academy ) in Byfield , Essex County, Massachusetts . He then moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill . There he was trained by Dean Smith , a legendary basketball coach and a member of both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the FIBA Hall of Fame who made the Tar Heels college team one of the most prestigious college teams in the country. Bucknall himself played in the Tar Heels together with the future NBA All-Star Brad Daugherty and the future NBA champions Kenny Smith and Rick Fox . The Tar Heels always reached at least the last sixteen Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Division I Basketball Championship , twice the quarter-finals Elite Eight , but missed another Final Four participation in the late 1980s . Bucknall himself was elected to the "2nd Team" of the Atlantic Coast Conference in his senior year, which corresponds to the ten best players in this conference . Even so, Bucknall was not selected in the 1989 NBA draft that followed. During the summer break, however, he was able to convince those in charge of the NBA runner-up Los Angeles Lakers to give him a contract. He then played 18 games with a good four minutes of playing time per game for the Lakers in the 1989/90 season , before he was released from his contract in March 1990 before the end of the season.

For the 1990/91 season Bucknall first returned to his British homeland and played in Sunderland in the British Basketball League, founded in 1987, where he and his team won the league's cup competition. In the summer of 1991 he tried over the summer league United States Basketball League , in which he lost the final game of this league with the Miami Tropics, to recommend himself again in the USA for a contract in the NBA. When this failed, he played in the German basketball league for BG Stuttgart / Ludwigsburg in the 1991/92 season . The Swabian club won the southern group of the first division, but lost in the semi-final play-offs for the German championship against Alba Berlin . For the following season Bucknall moved to the French record champions ASVEL from Villeurbanne . ASVEL had won its last title in 1981 and in 1993 they were eliminated early in the play-off round of 16 from the race for the championship title. For the following season he was committed by the league competitor from Le Mans , another old master. This had previously given itself a professional organization and renamed "Le Mans Sarthe Basket" (MSB), but was not very successful in its first season and only occupied the penultimate place in the table.

In 1994 Bucknall returned to the British Basketball League (BBL) and played for the Thames Valley Tigers in Bracknell near his native London. With this team he won the so-called "BBL Trophy", a separately played competition of the BBL with regional group games in the preliminary round. For the following season 1995/96 he returned home to London and played for the Towers, with which he won the Cup and the Trophy and had the best record of all teams in the regular season. The play-offs alone were won by the Birmingham Bullets for league MVP Tony Dorsey . The Bosman decision made Bucknall interesting again for other European clubs, because as a Briton, unlike the Americans, he no longer occupied a "foreigner place". In 1996 he then moved to the Greek cup finalist Iraklis in A1 Ethniki . He lost during the season Jurij Zdovc , but still reached the semi-finals in the European Cup Winners' Cup . In the championship they were not very successful and missed the play-offs for the championship as well as in the following year. For the 1998/99 season Bucknall then moved to the second Italian division, where he first played for the club from Fabriano , before he was committed in late January 1999 by the first division club from Reggio nell'Emilia . While Fabriano was relegated at the end of the season from the second division, Bucknalls club from Emilia-Romagna reached the play-offs for the Italian championship, in which they were eliminated in the first round against a worse-placed team.

In 1999 Bucknall returned again to the BBL and played again at the London Towers, which had previously won the play-offs of the BBL. While you won the BBL Trophy, you were eliminated in the play-off in the semifinals. For the newly created ULEB Euroleague 2000/01 you got a starting place, but there was no chance and was eliminated after only one victory in ten games of the preliminary round. Also in the championship they lost the semifinals again, this time against the eventual champions Leicester Riders. Bucknall then returned to Thessaloniki at the age of 35 and played for local rivals Aris in the 2001/02 season. While his English national team colleague Andrew Betts won the championship with AEK, Aris did not reach the play-offs. After a season, he returned to the BBL in 2002, where he played for the Birmingham Bullets before returning to Thessaloniki during the season, this time playing for Iraklis again. Iraklis narrowly missed the play-offs for the championship at the end of the season because of the poorer direct comparison . In the following season 2003/04 they reached the play-offs and could win the small final series for third place.

At the age of 38, Bucknall played another season in the second French league LNB Pro B in the 2004/05 season together with the French old international Stéphane Ostrowski, who was four years older than him . However, you only reached the third from bottom place in the table. At the age of 39, Bucknall returned to the BBL and now also acted as assistant coach for the Leicester Riders in the 2005/06 season. The Newcastle Eagles, which emerged from the Thames Valley Tigers, dominated the BBL with British international Andrew Sullivan this season and won all titles, including the trophy in the final against the Leicester Riders. Then Bucknall first ended his active career after he had won a bronze medal with the English national team in the first ever basketball competition as part of the Commonwealth Games at the 2006 Games in Melbourne . After the London Towers had to stop playing for financial reasons, the successor club London United also closed the game in 2007. For the 2007/08 season, London Capital was accepted into the BBL and Bucknall was hired as its coach. In their debut season, the Capital narrowly missed the play-offs of the BBL and Bucknall then went to the English association, where he has been coaching England's male U18 youth team since 2010.

Web links

• archive.fiba.com: Players - Stevenson Lee BUCKNALL (ENG) - Overview of participation in FIBA competitions ( English )
• Steve Bucknall NBA & ABA Statistics - player profile at basketball-reference.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ M2006> Athletes> Display: BUCKNALL Steven. (No longer available online.) Commonwealth Games 2006 : Melbourne2006.com, archived from the original on April 23, 2012 ; accessed on July 3, 2013 (English, participant profile). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ ^{a b} M2006> Schedule and Results> Basketball: Men Bronze M. Match 39. (No longer available online.) Commonwealth Games 2006 : Melbourne2006.com, archived from the original on September 5, 2013 ; accessed on July 3, 2013 (English, game statistics). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Legabasket: Steve Bucknall. Lega Basket Serie A , accessed August 14, 2012 (Italian, player statistics). 
4. ↑ Steve Bucknall - Antibes - Joueurs - Pro B. Ligue Nationale de Basket , accessed on August 14, 2012 (French, seasonal statistics). 
5. ↑ England Basketball: National Teams> News - U18 Men / STEVE BUCKNALL APPOINTED U18 MEN COACH. (No longer available online.) EnglandBasketball.co.uk, November 5, 2010, archived from the original on August 15, 2012 ; accessed on August 14, 2012 (English, message on news site). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.