Someone had their tail up, or something, I couldn’t quite work out what animal the mascot was meant to be at the Las Torres sports centre in Adeje for a pre season basketball friendly between CB Canarias and Frankfurt Skyliners. On reflection I reckon it was a dog, frisky and with a small tail it cavorted around the edge of the court as the teams warmed up, at least it didn’t try to mark out the corners in a unique canine way.

I managed to see a CB Canarias game at their La Laguna home Pabellon Santiago Martin, back in January and was impressed at their winning performance and 4,000 crowd. This rare visit to the south wasn’t officially announced until three days in advance, all tickets were a bargain three euros and around 600 people, they could have fitted another 200 maybe, took their seating above the court. Goodie bags were exchanged pre game and the teams set off at a cracking pace as spare players stretched and thrusted on the sidelines.

This is a good time to confess that my knowledge of the sport is pretty basic but the four quarters are 10 minutes playing time each with stoppages stretching that to around double. The two teams play in the top leagues of Spain and Germany but have a few imports, mainly American to bolster the squad. Half way into the first quarter Fotios Lampropoulos of CB Canarias crashed to the floor after a knock from an opponent, he was clearly in great pain and was carried off for treatment to a badly damaged leg.

One of the unsung jobs surrounding basketball is the sweat moppers, the polished wood floor that makes the trainers squeak as the players move also gets very slippy so two lads at each end were constantly called upon to mop up pools of sweat.

Anyway back to the game, the first two quarters were level 16 and 13 each and CB Canarias nosed in front by three points with the final period to go. During the breaks the local cheer leaders group Tenerife Tigers took to the court to perform their moves, well they have won prizes in international competition. I showed great restraint when they did one turn to the Hawaii Five O theme – an informal anthem of the Armada Sur.

So it was all set up for the final ten minutes, CB Canarias brought out the big guns, Levi Rost was top scorer on the night with 18 points, most of those coming in a late blitz. Luke Sikma is the big summer signing from America, he looked good, but I was very impressed by Mamadou Ndiang by far the tallest on the court, the young Senegal player looks a great prospect.CB Canarias steadily pulled away and a late long basket from Ricardo Uriz underlined their superiority for a 78-60 win. Frankfurt didn’t look too upset, their coach was the coolest man on the court in his grey cord shorts, and thee crowd got top class entertainment with the gate money going to local sports development.