BM Slam Stal Ostrów Wielkopolski is the fifth club from Poland to play in the 2022-2023 season of the European North Basketball league.
This is a great year for Polish basketball, highlighted by the 4th place finish at the FIBA EuroBasket 2022 and a gold medal at the FIBA U23 World 3x3 Cup in Bucharest.
Ostrów Wielkopolski is located in the southern part of a Greater Poland region, almost in the middle of a triangle Poznan-Lodz-Wroclaw, 230 kilometers west of Warsaw and 350 kilometers east of Berlin.
The club was founded in 1947.
BM Stal made its first appearance at the Poland`s top flight in 1998 and played there until 2009.
The club returned to the first division in 2015 and is one of the Energa Basket league contenders since 2016.
Ostrów Wielkopolski has earned four trophies in recent years, including a Polish championship in 2021, a Polish Cup in 2019 and 2022, and a Polish SuperCup in September 2022.
BM Stal finished second in the PLK in 2018 and third in 2002 and 2017.
Ostrów Wielkopolski reached the final of the 2021 FIBA Europe Cup at Menora Mivtachim arena in Tel Aviv and played against Ironi Ness Ziona to earn the silver medal.
A team, led by Igor Milicic and Andrzej Urban, won six games enroute to final, including wins over Szolnoki (Hungary), Sporting CP (Portugal), Ironi Ness Ziona (Israel), Heroes den Bosch (Netherlands), Belfius Mons-Hainaut (Belgium) and CSM CSU Oradea (Romania).
The next year BM Stal entered the Basketball Champions league to face the teams like Manresa from ACB league, Pinar Karsiyaka from Turkey and Hapoel Jerusalem from Israel.
Igor Miličič became the new head coach of the Polish National team on October 1, 2021 and signed a two year contract with the Polish Basketball federation.
Andrzej Urban (born 1991) is the new head coach of BM Stal, assisted by Konrad Kaźmierczyk.
The new squad features a 2021 Polish champion Jakub Garbacz and a 2014 champion Damian Kulig.
Captain Kulig is one of the most known players in Poland.
He is a 2017 finalist of the Basketball Champions league and a 2017 Turkish Cup winner with Banvit Bandirma.
Kulig`s trophy case includes two Polish SuperCups (2014, 2022), three silver (2013, 2015, 2019) and one bronze medal (2010) in the Polish championship.
He was named as the best Polish player in the PLK (2015) and received the MVP award too (2015).
Ostrów Wielkopolski foreign players include a Latvian duo Aigars Šķēle – a brother of a 2003 Polish champion Armands Šķēle – and the 2014 FIBA EuroChallenge champion Ojārs Siliņš.
Montenegro forward Nemanja Djurišič attended the University of Georgia (2011-2015) and is a two time Polish champion with Zielona Gora (2016, 2017).
Point guard Quentin Snider played for the Louisville University (2014-2018) and won the 2021 Cyprus championship with AEK Larnaca.
Guard/forward Adonis Thomas (Memphis 2011-2013) has six NBA games under his belt – four with Orlando Magic and two with Philadelphia 76ers.
He made the 2014 NBA Development league All Rookie first team and the Futures All Star team for the 2015 D-league All Star Game.