Latvian basketball miracle

At the turn of the century Gulbene Buki won the Latvian Basketball League (LBL) bronze medals three times, the club’s home games had an electrifying atmosphere. Later Feast disappeared from the scene of the top league, however, after being forgotten, slowly regained strength and has been fighting at the top of the National Basketball League (NBL) for a long time now. How is the famous club doing now?

Gatis Rikveilis. We fight as much as we can financially afford. A lot is driven by enthusiasm, and thankfully, it’s all working out so far. I think the level of the NBL is growing, every year the tournament is getting stronger, let’s see how long we can stay at the top. Many thanks to the coaches of Gulbene for the young talents that we are able to bring up every year, and with their help we also try to stay afloat.

LBL top division Feast left in 2009. In 2014, they took only 19th place in the second strongest tournament, but since 2018, the team has been fighting for medals. What became the turning point that Feast started gaining weight again?

G. R. It seems that it was 2016, when my son Nauris was still playing in the team. Entering the so-called blue bird hall, where for some reason they held matches back then, the sight was quite pathetic. I turned to the municipality with a lot of criticism and at that time, probably everyone understood that it was really very bad. Then an offer came – maybe I would like to manage the club and try to get it back to the level. The first season was more experimental, we won bronze already in the next season, but in the third year of my activity we won the league gold. It was a happy coincidence that Ingars Aizpurs, Raimonds ended his professional career and joined the club. In the bronze year, we met in the decisive series with Valmiera Glass/ViA (after this season, the team went to the higher league, when the strongest club in the city Valmiera/Ordo went bankrupt – aut.), which was in a very strong composition. They won the first game in Gulbene, and before the second game they had set the tables, and they were already tentatively chasing the medals. However, we won the game in Valmiera and lost in the decisive match in Gulbene. The gold was won by the Ķekava team with the now Olympic champion Nauri Miezi as its member. Two seasons were interrupted by covid, but every year we have fought for medals and won them regularly, except for one time when we finished fourth.

Third place in the NBL was achieved in the previous two seasons. Is the composition of the unit mostly made up of local sports school students combined with some Latvian basketball seniors?

G. R. Thanks to the head coach Raimonds, we successfully cooperate with Valmiera and experienced players who put their professional careers aside, such as Jānis Kaufmanis and Jānis Engers, choose to play with us. They often pull the team, raise our young ones.

Raymond, how did you get into coaching?

Raimonds Gabrans. Already in the last years of my playing career, when I no longer had a big role on the field, I looked more at the coaches when I was on the bench. It was with both Ainars Zvirgzdins and Roberts Stelmacher. Due to family circumstances, I had to return to Gulbene. The idea was simply to play the last season here, but I had to start training.

G. R. My setup was that Book the head coach must also train the two older groups of the sports school. At that time we were coached by Artūrs Brūniņš, we broke a lot of spears, but in the end we had to part ways with Artūrs. Then there were no more options. The coaches who work at our sports school do not have such a high level of experience, but Raimonds has accumulated a huge amount of experience as a player. I had no choice but to talk to him and ask him to be the head coach. Great! I don’t regret anything!

You even went undefeated in the regular season for one season. Have a similar goal this season?

R. G. The main goal is the elimination tournament. As we know, the regular season doesn’t mean much in basketball. Yes, it would be cool to play without losses, but the play-off decides everything.

Mārtiņ, after the Covid-19 pandemic, the Latvian basketball support partnership was established, which initially cooperated with VEF Riga team. The goals of the partnership were announced – to develop and financially support Latvian youth and adult national basketball teams, club basketball culture in Latvia and to cooperate with basketball clubs of other countries and international basketball organizations.

Martin the Lion. My initial activities in basketball, not as a player, date not to 2021, but to 1997, when in Ventspils opened the new basketball hall. Therefore, BK Ventspils changed to a new quality, including starting to compete in Eurocups, and together with Ralf Pleinitz, we created a fan club of the unit. That year I also participated in the founding of the Ventspils University team. After that, there have been countless Latvian basketball support projects in various forms – financial support of the Latvian Youth Basketball League (LJBL), support of youth programs of the Latvian Basketball Association (LBS), BAA Riga, VEF Rīga, TTT Rīga, Rīga zellī and others. The Latvian basketball support partnership became a logical continuation, within its framework I have already supported about ten basketball projects. I have always been in basketball with one goal – to help the most talented young Latvian basketball players reach the national team level. Last season I supported Riga medicines. What are we seeing this season? In November, five of their players were on the list of candidates for the Latvian national team. I don’t think that a year and a half ago anyone knew Tomas Skuja or Juri Vitols. Of course, they had heard of Krisha Helmanis, Dāvids Vīksnes and Roberta Bērzīn, but the majority did not even know what they looked like. Now Medicines They have already given five players to the Latvian national team, I am very happy about it. In the summer, there were six students of the Gulbene Sports School in the youth basketball teams. Yes, Gulbene has been one of the five Latvian basketball centers outside of Riga for 50 years, along with Valmiera, Liepaja, Ventspila and Ogri, but how is it possible that such a small sports school can make such a huge contribution to Latvian basketball? It’s phenomenal! Therefore, seeing this result in a set with Reina (Gulbene Buku I have decided to financially support the very professional approach of manager Reiņas Rikveilis – author Gulbene Bukus and hopefully this is just the beginning.