Basketball: Franca equals the country’s longest undefeated streak – 06/04/2023 – Sport

With still ten minutes left for the end of the game, everything was already resolved. Helinho Garcia, 47, coach of Sesi Franca Basquete, rarely got up from the bench. Admired, he had nothing to say. His team provided a spectacle. Final score: 106 for Franca and 68 for Cerrado, for the 21st round of the NBB (Novo Basquete Brasil).

After the final whistle, shortly after 9:50 pm on Thursday (6), the team from the interior of São Paulo, playing in the Federal District, equaled the longest undefeated sequence in the history of Brazilian basketball, with 43 victories. Until then, the mark had been achieved only by the extinct COC Ribeirão Preto, between 2002 and 2003, the year in which it was national champion.

The last defeat of Touro, as the São Paulo team is called, took place on October 12, 2022, in the second game of the state championship finals, against São Paulo.

Since then, there have been 43 victories, highlighting a fast collective game. Thirty-one of those games were played only in the NBB, a competition in which the team is undefeated.

The rest of the triumphs are divided between Paulista, ending with the 15th title of Franca, Super 8 Cup, another trophy raised, and Champions League of the Americas, in which the team is classified for the finals.

Franca’s basketball tradition has long been known. Its team, founded in 1959, is the biggest national champion, with 12 titles. Therefore, the municipality is considered the national capital of the sport in which Brazil has already dominated the world three times. Two among men (1959 and 1963) and one among women (1994).

Basketball from Franca is also a family tradition. Its current coach, Helinho, is the son of Hélio Rubens Garcia, 82, a historic former player and coach of the Brazilian national team — owner of three medals in world championships in the 1960s and 1970s — and Touro.

Like his father, Helinho is also a former player for the Brazilian national team, having played in two world championships, and an idol for Franca. Upon retiring, in 2016, he took charge of the team with an arduous mission: to rescue a victorious aura after a period of little investment, including near bankruptcy in 2009, and to dethrone the bogeyman of Brazilian basketball at the time, Flamengo. .

For that, Helinho gained a heavy rear guard. Lula Ferreira, 72, coach Pan-American champion for Brazil in Santo Domingo, 2003, was made supervisor of the team.

The double quickly paid off: in 2018, an invigorating São Paulo title came, marking the beginning of a new era of glory. The following year, the two-time affirmation championship took place.

However, it wasn’t the state championships that made Franca’s eyes shine. There was still a void on the giant shelf in the trophy room at Pedrocão (Ginásio Poliesportivo Pedro Morilla Fuentes), where the team from the interior plays its matches. An NBB title was missing.

In the 2021/22 season, Touro, with a cast full of names with recurring passages through the national team, such as Lucas Dias, Georginho Melo and Lucas Mariano, was determined to achieve the conquest.

With three more victories than Flamengo, the team led the first phase of the competition. In the playoffs, he eliminated the traditional Pinheiros in the quarterfinals and the strong São Paulo in the semis until the meeting with the rubro-negro carioca in the finals, in a best-of-five series.

Franca won the first two meetings. He narrowly lost the third and, at home, dominated Flamengo in the final match, lifting the cup.

In the current season, moving towards the last round of the qualifying phase, the great forces remain the same, the squads are similar and the rivalry, fueled by a feeling of revanchism, is greater. Next Monday (10th), Franca and Flamengo —second place in the NBB— duel at 8pm at Pedrocão.