Covirán Granada and Bàsquet Girona premiered their honors at…

PABLO ROMERO / COMMUNICATION AREA FEB

When both teams began their pre-season work, back in August, perhaps very few could have imagined that at this point in the year, both Covirán Granada and Bàsquet Girona would be able to boast promotions to the Endesa League. Because in a year in which a large part of the bets pointed directly to the blue of Movistar Estudiantes, both the Nasrid team and the Girona entity insisted on being able to bet everything on red in order to achieve their dream.

An adventure that began with the complicity of two pavilions with tradition in national basketball, but in which their greatest successes had taken place in a lower category with their promotion from the LEB Silver League to the LEB Gold League. The best possible prelude to the time to be able to fight for the double of LEB promotions with which to be able to conquer the long-awaited jump to the Endesa League.

Two historic nights that have taken two entities that broke into the history of basketball to a higher dimension in order to write their first golden pages.

Covirán Granada and Bàsquet Girona, double and personal debut towards the Endesa League:

Just over a decade had passed since the city of Granada experienced its last experience in the Endesa League and a total of 18 years since the city celebrated the last of the two promotions of the extinct CB Granada to the ACB. Two promotions really distant in time and that seem to have been ousted in the memory of the fans by the overwhelming year of the current Covirán Granada in the LEB Gold League. A team that knew how to take advantage of the experience of the previous season where promotion escaped in the last 40 minutes of the course and that he had in his coach Pablo Pin the best possible master of ceremonies when it came to being able to lead a group in which the continuity of the block served as the starting point.

Solid foundations that led the Nasrid team to play in the Final of the Princess of Asturias Cup as well as to be able to assault a first place from which they would end up winning the first promotion in its history to the ACB League. A fact with two precedents in the city in 2001 and 2004, but which had never been associated with the league title before. And it is that, on this occasion, Covirán Granada managed to promote from the first place in the classification to be able to boast of the title of champions of the 2022 LEB Gold League.

And if the Andalusian promotion was historic, no less overwhelming at the media level has been that of a Bàsquet Girona that managed to win second place in promotion through the Final Four played in Fontajau. A success with which the Girona team has put an end to its city’s 14-year absence from the highest national competition, signing what has been the first promotion in the history of a Girona club since the LEB Gold League.

Two new teams for a “wall of fame” that already has a total of 51 promotions throughout the 26-year history of a competition that will remember their names forever.

Andalusia and Catalonia highlight an extensive history of promotions:

They had two new teams this season in the fight for promotion to the Endesa League, but both Andalusia and Catalonia have seen how both teams contributed to reinforcing their usual historical presence in promotions to the Endesa League. And it is that both Autonomous Communities have “conquered” their fifth promotion this season to be placed just one of that symbolic podium in which Galicia (6) and the Basque Country (6) are found and that they will continue to lead, at least for some years more, by the intractable Castilla y León (8).

Because that will be the new qualifying order after a 2021/22 season in which the rise of Covirán Granada has joined a list in which the most recent Andalusian success was carried by Real Betis Energía Plus (2019) and in which its The first promotion dated from the inaugural season of the LEB Oro when Ciudad de Huelva managed to proclaim itself as the first champion in history. In between, the two promotions of the first Nasrid project will complete a repóquer with four teams involved.

For its part, Catalonia has seen how Bàsquet Girona achieved the first Girona promotion in history since a LEB Oro in which teams such as Caprabo Lleida or Bàsquet Manresa had previously triumphed, which has been able to reconcile with basketball on three occasions after as many category descents.