THE head coach of Dunfermline Reign’s senior men’s team has hailed their historic title win as the result of “hard work over a long number of years”.

Kevin Pringle said that winning the Scottish Basketball Championship (SBC) for the first time in the club’s history was a “nice feather in the cap”, and was the fruition of developing its youth programme.

After winning all but one of their 18 matches, Reign were crowned champions last month and were presented with the trophy following their SBC play-off quarter-final victory over Edinburgh Lions last Saturday (March 9).

Pringle’s team took on City of Edinburgh – the only side to defeat them in the league – at St Columba’s High School in the last four of the play-offs on Saturday, but lost out by just 77-75.

Speaking to Press Sport ahead of that game, he commented: “There’s been a lot of hard work over a long number of years.

“The senior team, over the last 10 years, has struggled so we’ve invested a lot of time and energy in the young players. It’s great to see players who have been involved with the club from young ages go on to be senior champions, and also guys who stuck out that difficult period.

“They’ve knitted together and built something special in the end.

“We’ve played some nice basketball this year and have had 14 guys that have bought in to being a team. At the start of the season, the big thing for us was to be together, and it has been a big team effort.

“We’ve responded in tough games and that togetherness, and willingness to make a sacrifice for the team, has been a big part of it.

“We’ve got the play-off semi-final against Edinburgh this weekend, and they’re the one team that have beaten us.

“To add a play-off title would be nice but we’ve overachieved already; our target this year was to finish in the top four.”