Brussels Basketball is a professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

club based in

Neder-Over-Heembeek Neder-Over-Heembeek (; ) is a former municipality of Brussels, Belgium, that was merged into the City of Brussels in 1921. Nowadays, it is a northern section of that municipality, and a predominantly industrial zone, especially known for the Qu ...

(

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

. The team plays in the

BNXT League The BNXT League is a professional basketball league in Belgium and the Netherlands. The league is the first tier in both the Dutch and Belgian system, replacing the Dutch Basketball League, DBL and Pro Basketball League, PBL. The inaugural season ...

. Home games are played at the Sports Complex Neder-Over-Heembeek.

History

The club was founded in 1957. In 1999 Excelsior merged with AERA Castor and renamed itself AERA Excelsior Brussel VZW. After 7 years in the 3e Nationale, the Belgian third division, Excelsior promoted to the 2e Nationale in 2009. In the first two years, Excelsior finished 4th and 5th and was defeated in the quarterfinals. In the 2011–12 season Excelsior reached the semifinals and in the 2012–13 season, it finished 10th while missing the Playoffs. The club moved to the professional Scooore League, the first tier in Belgium, for the 2013–14 season. Excelsior received a C-licence, which allowed them to play with a lower budget in the league. The club also got a new main sponsor in Basic-Fit, and was renamed Basic-Fit Brussels. During the 2016–17 season, Brussels participated in a European competition for the first time by entering the 2016–17 FIBA Europe Cup season. Brussels finished fourth and last in Group A, winning one out of six games. Along with this, the club finished in the third place in the Belgian League and reached the Finals for the first time in club history by beating

Antwerp Giants Antwerp Giants, named Windrose Giants Antwerp for sponsorship reasons, is a Belgian professional basketball club based in Antwerp. Their home arena is Lotto Arena. The club plays in the BNXT League, the highest tier of Belgian basketball. The c ...

in the semi-finals. In July 2019, the club announced it changed its name to Phoenix Brussels. From December 2020 to March 2021, Phoenix played its home games in the

Palais 12 The ING Arena is an indoor arena in Brussels, Belgium, that is part of the Brussels Expo complex. Located on the Heysel Plateau, Heysel/Heizel Plateau in Laeken (northern part of the City of Brussels), it was originally built as the twelfth hal ...

. However, due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, there were no people in attendance. Since the 2021–22 season, Brussels plays in the

, in which the national leagues of Belgium and the Netherlands have been merged. On 17 June 2022 the club signed a sponsor agreement with Circus, leading to a name change; the club colours were also changed to red. The team also signed Belgian national team player Kevin Tumba. In march 2023 Brussels announced that head coach Jaumin would be replaced by Serge Crèvecoeur for the 2023-2024 season. In early 2023, Belgium adopted a new law prohibiting the promotion of gambling. Consequently, the club had to remove their sponsor "Circus" from their name during the summer of the same year.

Arenas

Upon the club's establishment in 1957, the team played outdoors on the field of the King Baudoin/Boudewijn Stadium (then the Heysel/Heizel Stadium). The current home arena of Brussels is the Sports Complex Neder-Over-Heembeek, a municipal multi-purpose sports hall with retractable seating, accommodating approximately 1,000 people. Owned by the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

rather than the club, this has historically led to scheduling conflicts, affecting the teams' training sessions. Since 2017 the team regularly plays gala matches in Palais/Paleis 12. In the 2020–2021 season, the team made a temporary move to the venue for all games from December 2020 to April 2021. The club recognized early the necessity of upgrading its infrastructure. In 2013, upon entering the first division, the president André De Kandelaer stated, "Our hall is not designed for the first division" and "If a serious project develops, it will certainly not be at Neder-Over-Heembeek". In 2017, a plan was unveiled for a 3,000-seat arena on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau, but it failed to materialize. In 2021, a more ambitious proposal for a 4,000-seat arena at the same location was introduced, though this project did not progress either.

Honours

* Belgian League : ''Runners-up (1)'': 2016–17 *Belgian Third Division : Champion (1): 2008-09

Names

Due to sponsorships and other reasons, the name of the club has frequently changed:

Season by season

Players

Current roster

Depth chart

Notable players

Head coaches

* Serge Crèvecoeur: 2008–2017, 2018–2020, 2023–present * Laurent Monier: 2017–2018, 2020 * Ian Hanavan: 2020–2021 * Jean-Marc Jaumin: 2021–2023

References

External links

Official websiteEurobasket.com profile
{{BNXT League 1957 establishments in Belgium Basketball teams established in 1957 Basketball teams in Belgium Pro Basketball League teams Sports clubs and teams in Brussels