Associação Bauru Basketball Team


The Associação Bauru Basketball Team, commonly known as Bauru Basquete, and also known as Zopone Bauru for name sponsorship reasons, is a Brazilian professional basketball team that is based in Bauru, São Paulo, Brazil. The club plays Brazil's top-tier level league, the Novo Basquete Brasil.

Crests and colors

History

Bauru was the second team of the Brazilian shooting guard Leandrinho Barbosa. Barbosa was an important player during the previous top-tier level Nacional Championship, in 2002. In that year, Bauru won the championship title, after winning a series against Araraquara. Barbosa and his teammates Marquinhos Vieira, Murilo Becker, Vanderlei, and others, won the series by a 3–0 score.
In the new Brazilian top-tier league, the NBB's first season, Bauru signed the American Brazilian point guard Larry Taylor. In the NBB's fourth season, Taylor, helped by the young player Gui Deodato, the experienced Fernando Fischer, and another American, Jeff Agba, led the team to a sixth place finish in the league.
Bauru won its first FIBA Americas League championship, as they won the 2015 FIBA Americas League. The club was thus crowned the Latin American champions for the first time. Because of the Americas League victory, the team would then play in the 2015 FIBA Intercontinental Cup, against the EuroLeague's 2014–15 season champions, Real Madrid.
Bauru Basket has also won three São Paulo State Championships. Bauru reached even bigger heights, when it was announced that the team would be a part of the 2015–16 NBA preseason's international versus NBA games. Bauru played against the NBA clubs, the New York Knicks and the Washington Wizards in the United States, becoming the third Brazilian team to play against NBA teams, after C.R. Vasco da Gama and C.R. Flamengo.
In the 2016–17 NBB season, after two consecutive losses in the NBB's finals, Bauru finally became the Brazilian League champions once again, by winning the title for the first time in 15 years. They won the title, after coming back from a 2-0 series deficit, to beat C.A. Paulistano, in a 5 games series. Bauru's Alex Garcia, was named the NBB Finals MVP.

Honors and titles

Worldwide

Players

Current roster (season 2019-20)

Notable players