UCD Marian
| UCD Marian | |
|---|---|
| Leagues | Super League |
| Arena | UCD Sports Centre |
| Location | Belfield, Dublin, Ireland |
| Team colors | Yellow & blue |
| Head coach | Ioannis Liapakis |
| Championships | 1 (1978) |
| Website | UCDMarian.com |
UCD Marian is an Irish basketball team based in Dublin. The team competes in the Super League and plays its home games at the UCD Sports Centre. The team is a division of UCD Marian Basketball Club and is directly associated with the University College Dublin.
Marian Basketball Club was founded in 1968 when a group of pupils and past-pupils of Marian College, Ballsbridge entered a team in the Dublin Minor Basketball League. That team included Paul Meany, Ken McIntyre, Sean Conroy, Michael Meany and Fran Ryan. The team won the Dublin Minor Championship, and two years later, the club also entered a team in the Dublin Senior League. This team absorbed an existing team called the Shannon Dodgers, which featured Dublin-based past pupils of St. Marys College, Athlone, another Marist Brothers school. These included Bill Doyle and Lonan McHugo. In 1970, the club won the Dublin Senior Championship with Paul Meany, Ken McIntyre, Sean Conroy, Michael Meany and Fran Ryan all featuring.
In 1972, New York native Brian Berman, who was studying medicine at the College of Surgeons, and had played college basketball at Columbia University, joined the team. Under player-coach Paul Meany, Marian won their first national title, the National Cup.
In 1973–74, Marian entered the inaugural National League with the Mens A team in Division One and the Mens B team in Division Two. After finishing runners-up behind Killester for three straight years between 1975 and 1977, Marian were crowned champions of the National League in 1978 after defeating St. Vincent's Dublin in the final. 1978 also saw Marian compete in the Federation Cup for British and Irish teams.
The 1979–80 season marked a sea change in Irish basketball as it was the first time paid players were recruited from overseas. St Vincent's Killarney brought over two American players and re-shaped the top flight league. The league brought in regulations to limit the number of foreign born players to two and thus prevent the full professionalisation of the league as had happened in Britain.
For the 1981–82 season, Canadian coach Bruce Patterson took the reins, while Irish international John O'Connor joined from Killester. Tom Hinga, a 6'5" forward from Colorado, became the first paid player for Marian. A mid-table finish in 1982 meant the club had to seriously raise sponsorship and finance to compete in the new semi-professional era. The Irish Basketball Association (IBA) promoted a scheme whereby American investors put money into clubs, including Marian. George Murphy from Chicago was the principal investor in the club. The club also acquired sponsorship from Yoplait, and as a result, the National League team was called Team Yoplait for the next four seasons (1982–86). Unfortunately, results on court were not so good and the team was relegated from the top flight at the end of the 1982–83 season.
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