For the second time this season, the Danish basketball website Fullcourt.dk awards DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell the title ‘Player of the Month’. In February, the star player from Bakken Bears proved yet again that he is a top candidate for the title as ‘Player of the Year’ in the Danish tier-one league, the Basketligaen.

Bakken Bears signed the explosive player from Illinois State, DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell, for the season 2016/17, and that signing is hardly one that the Aarhus-based team will regret. Throughout the season, Akoon-Purcell has performed on a consistently high level, and apart from being the points leader in the Basketligaen, he also proved to be quite the scoring machine in the Basketball Champions League.

This performance, particularly in the Champions League, will most probably result in him not being part of the Basketligaen next season. However, throughout the month of February, Akoon-Purcell caused lots of joy in Bakken Bears, playing no less than nine games.

“It has been a little tough playing so many games in a short period of time, but our coaching staff did a great job with allowing us to rest and not having every practice as intense as we normally do to help us perform better on game day,” he says to Fullcourt.dk.

Bakken Bears was used to a tight game schedule from earlier on this season, as the Danish team has played 16 European games apart from the usual Basketligaen games, which is why a number of Basketligaen games had been postponed for 2017. Hence, Bakken Bears took advantage of their experiences from earlier this season to once again play a lot of games during a short period of time.

“It definitely helped us safely through February that we had also been used to playing in the Champions League.”

The team before own success

On an individual note, February was a great month for DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell, who lead his team to seven wins in nine games – averaging 24.33 points. However, good individual stats are not essential for the Bakken Bears star.

“To be honest, I haven’t thought or really cared about numbers, and I believe that’s why my team and myself has had so much success recently. My main goal is to remain focused, and hopefully I can continue becoming better as a ball player and teammate and also push my teammates to become better as well,” Akoon-Purcell says.

During February, Bakken Bears played three games against the top rivals from Horsens IC. Bakken suffered two losses against The Yellow (as the team is called), which cost the Aarhus team essential points in the fight for top position in the league. These two clubs are fiercely fighting to finish number one in the regular season league table. Currently, Horsens IC holds the number 1 position with 2 points more than Bakken Bears.

However, Bakken Bears is in pole position after the latest game against their rivals, in which Bears took a convincing 80-53 win. Having played two games less than Horsens in total, Bears is still able to overtake Horsens for first position – provided that they win the last four games of the regular season. And Akoon-Purcell believes this is possible.

“The win [against Horsens IC on 26/2, red.] was very important for our team, but I like our chances of getting the top spot as long as we remain focused and listen listen to our coaches. All we can do is take it one game at a time, and every time we play, we leave it out on the floor!”

During the past three months, Fullcourt.dk has awarded a player in Basketligaen with the title Player of the Month as a new initiative. Akoon-Purcell receives the honour for the second time, and he appreciates it.

“I’m very thankful and honoured for getting the Player of the Month award!” says Akoon-Purcell to finish off the interview with Fullcourt.dk.

This is a translation from Danish into English of the original text “Player of the Month – DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell”, published on the Danish basketball website fullcort.dk on 2 March 2017.

Read the original text in Danish here.

Translation by Brit Sørensen / BS Sports & Media