Hapoel U-NET Holon’s Joe Ragland named MVP of the Month for March

Leadership is based on a spiritual quality, the power to inspire others to follow. The good old Vince Lombardi quote comes as a perfect way to describe what Joe Ragland did to win the MVP of March award in the Basketball Champions League.

Hapoel U-NET Holon guard put his teammates first for most of the season, but when the campaign was on the line, he wasn’t afraid to take over in the scoring department too, prolonging Holon’s run all the way to the Quarter-Finals – with home court advantage.

Ragland averaged 12 points, 8 assists and 4 rebounds per game in March, leading Hapoel U-NET Holon to a 3-1 record in the group of death of the Round of 16. That one defeat was practically a win, because a three-point defeat to Galatasaray Nef meant that Holon protected their tiebreaker advantage.

Eventually, it didn’t even matter. The 32-year-old point guard and his teammates stormed through to win the group, and earn home court advantage for the Quarter-Finals. In a best-of-three matchup with SIG Strasbourg, that could be all important to reach the Final Four.

“I am glad to be a part of such a selfless team organization, and fans who make winning the main priority, not individual success,” Ragland said after learning he was named MVP of March.

“I am honored to receive this award. This is a credit to our team success. Coaches and the players work hard every day to obtain our goal, one goal, which is to be victorious.”

Holon are victorious thanks to Ragland’s leadership. The former Wichita State Shocker is in his tenth season in Europe, with stops in UCAM Murcia, Cantu, AX Armani Exchange Milano, Pinar Karsiyaka, Sidigas Avellino, Lokomotiv Kuban, Crvena Zvezda, Hapoel Eilat and Hapoel U-NET Holon.

Amazingly, he seems to be improving with each passing year – pun intended on the “passing.” Ragland averaged just three assists per game in college while seeing almost 28 minutes per game. He wasn’t putting up serious assist numbers until the 2015-16 season, spent in Karsiyaka and Avellino.

While with Avellino in 2016-17, Joe climbed over 5.0 assists per game for the season for the first time in his career, then went on to average six per game for both Zvezda in 2018-19 and Cantu in 2019-20, before turning it up a notch in Israel with 7.5 assists across 29 games for Hapoel Eilat last season.

Ragland is not done improving in numbers yet. This season, he dished out 7.9 assists per game in the Basketball Champions League, an impressive number through the first 15 games of the season.

Holon’s point guard has 119 assists for the year, with Marcelinho Huertas being the only other player in triple digits with 103, in the same amount of games played. Just for comparison, nobody else has more than 88 assists in BCL this season.

“Congratulations to Joe on being named MVP of March. This is a direct achievement for investment in seriousness, for his leadership and the determination to lead Hapoel U-NET Holon into the Quarter-Finals,” coach Guy Goodes sounded proud of his guard.

Ragland feels the same way about his playcaller.

“Coach Goodes does a great job of making sure we are all on one accord. This award is definitely a group effort!”

Group effort sees him breaking records. He is on a run of ten straight games with seven or more assists in BCL, the longest such sequence in League history.

He has dished out 14 assists against MHP Riesen Ludwigsburg, the most in BCL this season.

He has already been named MVP in BCL, but it was way back in the second week of competition. In 2016-17, Ragland played for Sidigas Avellino and won the MVP of Week 2 award thanks to a 16-point, 10-assist double-double, with 6 rebounds and 3 steals also in for good measure.

The best part about that performance six years ago? It happened against SIG Strasbourg, the same club which will be on the other side of the Quarter-Finals in Holon on Wednesday evening, when Ragland receives his MVP of March award.