Heroes Den Bosch

Heroes Den Bosch
Leagues	BNXT League
Founded	18 October 1952; 72 years ago (1952-10-18)
Arena	Maaspoort
Capacity	2,700
Location	's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
Team colors	Red, White, Blue
President	Bob van Oosterhout
General manager	Stefan Wessels
Head coach	Erik Braal
Ownership	Bob van Oosterhout
2021–22 position	BNXT League, 5th of 21
Championships	17 Dutch Championships 8 Dutch Cups 3 Dutch Supercups 1 Ricoh Cup 1 Haarlem Basketball Week
Retired numbers	4 (5, 9, 12, 12)
Website	heroesdenbosch.com
Home Away

Heroes Den Bosch is a Dutch professional basketball club based in 's-Hertogenbosch.^[1] The club plays in the BNXT League since 2021 and in the top basketball division in the Netherlands since 1972. Founded as EBBC in 1951, the club had several sponsored names the following decades.

Den Bosch has won a record seventeen Dutch championships, a record eight Dutch Cups and two Dutch Supercup titles. The team has also been a regular at European competitions, most recently the FIBA Europe Cup. Heroes plays their home games at the Maaspoort, which has a capacity of approximately 2,700 people.^[2]

On 18 October 1952, Eerste Bossche Basketball Club (EBBC) was founded by Cees Vossen, Tom van der Leur, Hans van Oorschot and Frans van de Wiel. In 1962, Den Bosch played in the top division Eredivisie for the first time, but not very successful. Subsequently, the team was relegated again. In 1979, EBBC won its first title. In 1980, the team became Nashua Den Bosch after its new main sponsor. Its increased budget led to six consecutive Dutch titles between 1982 and 1987.

In December 1979, Nashua signed as the club's new main sponsor.^[3] In the next 10 years, Nashua won 9 national championships and was close to the European top clubs. Star players such as Tom Barker, Dan Cramer, Mitchell Plaat, David Lawrence, Henk Pieterse, Paul Thompson and Mike Reddick played for Nashua in this decade.

Den Bosch changed its home arena to the newly built Maaspoort, increasing its home capacity from 1,200 to 3,500. Nashua played in the 1979 FIBA Intercontinental Cup.

Decades later, in June 2005, Den Bosch merged with EiffelTowers Nijmegen to form EiffelTowers Den Bosch. Following the merger the club had one of the largest budgets in the Netherlands, and with that they were able to attract high-quality players. In their first season they had immediate success by winning the Dutch League title. The year after that (2006–07) EiffelTowers The Bosch would win the title again after a clean sweep against the Matrixx Magixx, after losing only four games in the regular season. The two following years, Den Bosch reached the finals, but lost twice to Amsterdam.

In 2012, EiffelTowers won its fifteenth Dutch championship, after beating ZZ Leiden 1–4 in a best-of-seven-series.

After 13 years playing as the EiffelTowers, in 2013, the club changed its name to SPM Shoeters as a reference to its new main sponsor SPM Shoes and Boots, a shoe producer based in Waalwijk.^[4] Along with the name change the club changed the team colors to black, after playing in red since 2000.

In the 2014–15 season, Shoeters won its sixteenth DBL championship after Donar was beaten 4–1 in the Finals. The team also performed excellently in the EuroChallenge that season, reaching the Top 16. Star of the season for Den Bosch was Brandyn Curry, who was named DBL Playoffs MVP.

After the 2015–16 season, it was revealed that Shoeters was dealing with serious financial problems which had the team on the edge of bankruptcy.^[5]

In October 2016, the team was bought by Triple Double BV, a sports marketing enterprise. Owner of the company Bob van Oosterhout took over the club which was no longer in danger of dissolution. On 6 November 2016, Den Bosch found a new main sponsor and subsequently was named New Heroes Basketball after signing a three-year deal with the local online training platform New Heroes.^[6] In its first season as New Heroes, the club finished fourth in the DBL and was swept by Donar in the semi-finals.

In the 2017–18 season, Croatian coach Silvano Poropat signed a two-year contract.^[7] Under Poropat, Heroes finished fourth once again but was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Rotterdam Basketbal. Following the disappointing season, Poropat and Heroes parted ways.

On 31 May 2018, Kees Akerboom Jr. announced his retirement at age 34.^[8] Akerboom, who played 11 seasons for the club, had his jersey number 12 retired.^[9]

For the 2018–19 season, Ivica Skelin was appointed as head coach. This season, New Heroes played in the FIBA Europe Cup after a European absence of 3 years. In Group D, Heroes had a 3–3 record and finished in third place. In the DBL playoffs, Den Bosch was once again eliminated in the semifinals, this time by Landstede.

On 21 August 2019, the club announced it was changing its name to Heroes Den Bosch and it is not planning to change the club name anymore.^[10] In June, Heroes signed Jean-Marc Jaumin as its new head coach.^[11]

On 15 June 2021, Heroes signed three-time DBL champion Erik Braal as head coach.^[12] In the 2021–22 season, the DBL merged with the PBL into the BNXT League, in which the national leagues of Belgium and the Netherlands are combined. On 29 May 2022, Heroes ended a 7-year drought when it won its seventeenth national championship, beating ZZ Leiden in the finals series 3–2.

Heroes Den Bosch logos
2009–2013	2013–2016	2017–2019	2019–now

After many successful seasons by Nashua Den Bosch in the 1980s, a true basketball hall was built with the Maaspoort. The arena was opened on 3 September 1982 with a game against the NBA All-Stars.^[13]

• De Vinkenkamp
• Maaspoort: 1982–present

Dutch National Champions (record)^[14]

• Winners (17): 1978–79, 1979–80, 1980–81, 1982–83, 1983–84, 1984–85, 1985–86, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1992–93, 1995–96, 1996–97, 2005–06, 2006–07, 2011–12, 2014–15, 2021–22

Dutch Cup (record)^[14]

• Winners (8): 1992–93, 1999–00, 2001–02, 2007–08, 2008–09, 2012–13, 2015–16, 2023–24

Dutch SuperCup^[15]

• Winners (3): 2013, 2015, 2022

Ricoh Cup^[16]

• Winners (1): 2000

FIBA Saporta Cup^[16]

• Runner-up (1): 1978–79

FIBA Intercontinental Cup^[16]

• Runners-up (1): 1982

Haarlem Basketball Week^[16]

• Winners (1): 2006

• Most Dutch Basketball League champions (17 championships)
• Most games played: Kees Akerboom, Jr. (671 games)^[17]

Heroes Den Bosch roster
Players	Coaches
Pos. No. Nat. Name Ht. Age G 0 Darthard, Le'Tre 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in) 24 – (2000-01-12)12 January 2000 G 1 Kier, Justin 1.92 m (6 ft 4 in) 26 – (1998-05-30)30 May 1998 G 2 van Vliet, Boy 1.94 m (6 ft 4 in) 30 – (1994-07-13)13 July 1994 G 3 Beens, Thijs 1.91 m (6 ft 3 in) 17 – (2006-11-19)19 November 2006 C 4 Cork, Xavier 2.06 m (6 ft 9 in) 23 – (2001-03-24)24 March 2001 F 10 Williamson, Samuell 2.01 m (6 ft 7 in) 24 – (2000-09-07)7 September 2000 G/F 13 Koehler, Troy 1.94 m (6 ft 4 in) 23 – (2001-07-30)30 July 2001 F 19 Landveld, Kyan 2.06 m (6 ft 9 in) 19 – (2005-09-09)9 September 2005 F 20 van Bree, Luuk 2.03 m (6 ft 8 in) 28 – (1996-02-24)24 February 1996 C 21 Dijkstra, Menno 2.13 m (7 ft 0 in) 27 – (1997-01-11)11 January 1997 F/C 27 Syla, Mal 2.02 m (6 ft 8 in) 18 – (2006-07-27)27 July 2006 G 30 Dorsey-Walker, Sherron 1.95 m (6 ft 5 in) 31 – (1993-03-16)16 March 1993	Head coach Erik Braal Assistant coach(es) Mike de Kraker Strength & conditioning coach(es) Bart Verberkmoes Legend (C) Team captain (DP) Development player (I) Import player Injured Roster Transactions Updated: November 1, 2024

Season	Competition	Round	Club	Home[A]	Away[A]	Agg[A]
2013–14	EuroChallenge	Regular season	Antwerp Giants	83–76	72–77	3rd in Group A
			JDA Dijon	66–70	64–83
			Rakvere Tarvas	78–71	70–57
2014–15	EuroChallenge	Regular season	Brindisi	71–69	62–76	2nd in Group
			Ulm	87–76	82–91
			Södertälje Kings	115–108 (OT)	72–88
		Second round	Avtodor	107–108 (OT)	85–89	4th in Group K
			Skyliners Frankfurt	92–94 (OT)	70–75
			Tartu University	78–77	64–71
2018–19	FIBA Europe Cup	Second qualifying round	Balkan	76–86	68–66	144–152[B]
		Regular season	Avtodor	93–97	79–89	3rd place in Group
			Ironi Nes Ziona	102–87	85–91
			JIP Pardubice	91–58	68–64
2020–21	FIBA Europe Cup	Regular season	Parma	63–85 (N)		2nd place in Group F
			Donar	99–98 (OT, N)
			Borisfen	DNP
		Round of 16	Stal Ostrów Wielkopolski	83–92 (N)
2021–22	FIBA Europe Cup	Regular season	Benfica	76–78	78–73	3rd in Group C
			Opava	87–82	88–72
			Parma	75–92	52–67

Notes

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (June 2022)

Coach	Nationality	Tenure	Honours
Bill Sheridan	United States	1976–1977
Ton Boot	Netherlands	1978–1980	2× Dutch Basketball League
Bill Sheridan	United States	1980–1982	1× Dutch Basketball League
Ton Boot	Netherlands	1982–1985	2× Dutch Basketball League
Charis Saideris	Netherlands	1989
Toon van Helfteren	Netherlands	1997–1998
Toon van Helfteren	Netherlands	2001–2005
Randy Wiel	Netherlands	2005–2009	2× Dutch Basketball League, 2× NBB Cup
Don Beck	United States	2009–2010
Maarten van Gent (interim)	Netherlands	1 April 2010 – 1 July 2010
Raoul Korner	Austria	2010–2013	1× Dutch Basketball League, 1× NBB Cup
Sam Jones	Netherlands	2013–2016	1× Dutch Basketball League, 1× NBB Cup, 1× Supercup
Sander van der Holst	Netherlands	2016–2017
Silvano Poropat	Croatia	2017 – August 2018
Ivica Skelin	Croatia	3 September 2018 – 22 June 2019
Jean-Marc Jaumin	Belgium	23 June 2019 – 31 May 2021
Erik Braal	Netherlands	15 June 2021 – present	1× Dutch champion, 1× Dutch Cup

• Official website (in Dutch)
• Eurobasket.com Den Bosch Page

51°43′21.64″N 5°18′55.87″E / 51.7226778°N 5.3155194°E / 51.7226778; 5.3155194