It's been quite a week for Caledonia Gladiators.
With the removal of Gareth Murray as head coach of the men's team, plus the players being forced to cope with a hectic playing schedule, it would be easy for Patrick Whelan, or any of his teammates, to complain about at least a little bit of fatigue creeping in.
After all, this evening’s Super League Basketball game against London Lions will be Caledonia Gladiators’ fifteenth game in the space of only six weeks, and it would have been sixteen had it not been for the last-minute cancellation of their FIBA Europe Cup match earlier this week.
It’s been a gruelling schedule by anyone’s standards but Whelan isn’t angling for any sympathy.
“It’s been a bit crazy but I love playing basketball games. You don’t become a professional player to practice, you do it to play big games so I’m really enjoying it,” he says.
“No one is going to feel sorry for us and we always knew this part of the season was going to be busy. But it does make me laugh when you hear teams in other sports complaining about how hard their schedule is.”
Whelan has become one of Caledonia Gladiators’ stand-out players since signing for the East Kilbride-based side in the summer of 2023.
It’s a standing that may get to some players but the 28-year-old Englishman is entirely unaffected by the expectation upon his shoulders.
“Pressure is a funny one. There’s always a reason a player has pressure on them and for me, the pressure doesn’t necessarily come from outside, it comes from inside,” he says.
“When your teammates are putting the ball in your hand and trusting you, that’s a good thing because it means you’ve earned that.
“So I don’t think about it as pressure, I more feel like my team is backing me to get us over the line so it feels more like support than pressure.”
Whelan, along with his teammates, will need to be at their very best this evening if they’re to put an end to the three-match losing streak that Gladiators are currently on.
The Scots take on current league leaders London Lions at the Copperbox Arena and with Gladiators still reeling from the news earlier in the week that head coach Gareth Murray has been moved to a new position in the club’s High-Performance programme, Whelan is desperate for his side to give the travelling fans something to cheer about.
“I know a lot of the London players and they’ve got a very good roster again this season,” he says.
“I’m excited to play them and it’ll be a high-level game so we want to show off our basketball abilities.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do but as long as we get our preparation right and we take care of the things we need to in the game this evening, I don’t see why we can’t get the result we want.”
Whelan is optimistic that come the end of the season, Gladiators, who will be led indefinitely by Assistant Head Coach, Lluis Riera, can, once again, be in the play-off places but he admits the challenge of juggling their domestic duties with a European campaign hasn’t always been easy.
So far in Europe, the Scottish side has enjoyed some impressive wins as well as suffering some heavy losses but Whelan, who played for the Spanish side, Murcia, for three seasons earlier in his career, has reveled in the contrast in styles that European and British basketball brings.
“I love playing in Europe. When you get to test yourself against really great competition, that’s always fun and I love seeing if I can hold my own in these games. For me, it’s one of the most fun parts of the season,” he says.
“The basketball is very different – it’s almost like it’s different rules.
“In the domestic league, there’s a lot of things you can get away with that you’d never get away with in Europe. For example, in Europe the refs call a lot more travels and you’ll not get away with pushes that you can get away with in Britain.
“I really enjoy it in Europe because for me, it’s the style of basketball that I like and I want to play and I’m sure a lot of my teammates would agree. It’s a whole different style of basketball in Europe but that’s exciting having to learn to cope.”
