Plymouth Marjon University is partnered with Plymouth City Patriots Basketball Club. Our students benefit from access to professional athletes and we work together to inspire future generations to participate in sport and to recognise the benefits of teamwork.
Plymouth Marjon University and Plymouth City Patriots have had a strong relationship since the inception of the former Plymouth Raiders Basketball Club in 1983. The Patriots team now play in the British Basketball League (BBL) – the premier basketball league in the UK and Patriots have firmly established themselves as one of Plymouth’s ‘big 3’ sports teams, alongside Argyle and Albion. Many Marjon alumni have played for the Plymouth Raiders and City Patriots. including ex Plymouth Raiders coach Gary Stronach, Jamie Burchell, Dean Williams, Rod Wellington, Deng Deng, Myron Riley, Gavin Love and most recently Denzel Ubiaro. We currently have a number of different students who train and play for Patriots aswell as the Marjon team.
The University is the main sponsor of Plymouth City Patriots and provides the training base for the Patriots team. The club’s offices are located on the University campus and the team trains exclusively at the University’s multi-purpose sports complex where it uses the sports halls, our BASES accredited sports science lab facilities and our extensive sports therapy clinic. Our students, therefore, have the opportunity to study and work directly with professional basketball players on a daily basis in the areas of sports therapy and rehabilitation, strength and conditioning, sports psychology, video analysis or sports development.
The partnership means students of Sport Coaching, Sports Therapy, Strength & Conditioning and Sport & Exercise Science and Sport Journalism get to work with professional athletes. Our student basketball team has been making huge strides in improvement due to the partnership which includes the Plymouth City Patriots players Joe Hart and Elvisi Dusha coaching the university basketball teams and ensuring that the bond between the Patriots and the University teams is close.
The Marjon Basketball 1st team compete in Western 1A in the British Universitires and Colleges Sport (BUCS) league & NBL D3 South West for the 2021/22 season and a 2nd team compete in BUCS Western 3A league & P&D League.