Club Profile: Boulogne Metropolitans 92

Jul 14, 2021 by Eurocupbasketball.com Print
Club Profile: Boulogne Metropolitans 92

Boulogne Metropolitans 92 enters its fifth 7DAYS EuroCup season since it made its debut in 2013-14. The French club won its Top 16 group last season, but then was swept in the quarterfinals by Herbalife Gran Canaria, thus matching the best result it had accomplished in 2014-15, its second EuroCup campaign.

Levallois Metropolitans was formed in 2007 when Racing Paris and Levallois Sporting Club Basket merged. The former can trace its roots back to 1882, though 40 years passed before it opened its basketball section. Racing Paris was the dominant force in French basketball in the early 1950s, when it won three French League crowns. It later shined in the 1980s and the 1990s as a regular in European competition. Another French title was captured in 1997, which led to its EuroLeague debut the following season. Levallois opened its doors in 1941 and played lower-level competitions until 1969 when it secured a spot in the second division. It soon reached the top flight, but did not last. Its next try came in 1992 when the club won the second-division crown. Its best season was in 1996, in which Levallois placed sixth and secured a berth in the 1996-97 Korac Cup.

The clubs' merger took time to produce results, but in 2009, Paris Levallois was promoted to become a mainstay in the French first division. In its EuroCup debut, the team did not get out of its regular season group. The club reached the Leaders Cup semifinals and the French League playoffs that season, too, before returning to make another EuroCup appearance. This time it made some serious noise as Paris Levallois was one of the clutch teams in the competition. The team finished the 2014-15 EuroCup regular season with a pair of wins to move on to the Last 32 and then swept PGE Turow Zgorzelec in the eighthfinals before bowing out in a thrilling two-game, total-points quarterfinals series against Banvit Bandirma.

The team was rebranded in 2017 as Levallois Metropolitans 92. Metropolitans missed out on the playoffs the next two seasons, but started the 2019-20 campaign strong, posting an 18-7 record for fourth place in the French League when the remainder of the season was called due to COVID-19. After a strong 2020-21 campaign, Boulogne Metropolitans 92 now returns to the EuroCup looking to, at least, match last season's results and hoping to improve on it, which would mean a spot in the semifinals.