BBL Championship: Sheffield Sharks must banish Cheshire Phoenix hoodoo says Marcus Delpeche

Despite often finding themselves below Sheffield in the league table, Phoenix have won the last eight meetings between the pair stretching back to 2019.

And, unsurprisingly, they registered their first win of the regular BBL season against Sheffield in November after losing their opening four games.

As a new arrival, 26-year-old Delpeche is relatively free of the Cheshire curse.

“We just need to come together and put a good 40 minutes together,” he said ahead of their meeting at Ponds Forge on Friday (7:30pm tip-off).

"Now we have got over the Covid stuff when we were losing players I think we will be fine.

"Now we are trying to make a top play-off push and have aspirations of finishing in the top three we can’t afford to lose games like this.”

After going down 77-90 to Manchester Giants in the BBL Trophy last weekend, Sheffield’s last remaining hope of silverware this season is via the end-of-season Play-Offs.

Despite the disappointing result, Delpeche produced a career-best performance for the Sharks against Manchester with 16 points and three rebounds.

The British-American dual-national admitted he’s loving life in the Steel City after spending the first three years of his professional career with Bristol Flyers.

"Sheffield is an amazing city,” he said.

"It reminds me of Bristol but it’s smaller in the sense that you don’t walk around as much to get where you need to be.

"It’s cloudy, but that’s just the UK.

"I just feel like Sheffield was the perfect next step.”