History
The team was officially established in 1947. As Polisportiva Libertas, they spent their first decades in the regional leagues. In 1972, the team was promoted for the first time to Serie B, the second highest league in Italy at the time. It was also renamed Basket Rimini.
In 1974, Alberto Bucci was appointed as the new head coach. During his five-year stint, he led the team from Serie D to its first historic Serie A2 participation in the 1978–79 season, which also brought the first American basketball players to Rimini.
On April 8, 1984, the team was promoted to Serie A1, the top tier of the Italian league system, where it played for the next three years, reaching the quarter-finals in 1985. After three years in Serie A2, the team was relegated to Serie B, but a double promotion brought them back to Serie A1 in just two years. Part of that roster featured young players who won the national junior title in 1989, including Carlton Myers, who would later be Italy's flag-bearer at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
In 1993, Basket Rimini was relegated again to Serie A2. It came close to returning to A1 three times before finally achieving this at the end of the 1996–97 season. Basket Rimini advanced to the Serie A1 quarter-finals in both the 1997–98 and 1998–99 seasons, qualifying for the following year's FIBA Korać Cup. With a last-place finish in the 2000–01 Serie A1, the club fell into Legadue, the new name for Serie A2. Simultaneously, Basket Rimini was renamed Basket Rimini Crabs. [1]
The team competed in the Legadue league from the 2001–02 season to the 2010–11 season, coming close to securing promotion to Serie A in 2006–07 but ultimately falling short.
In 2011, the Crabs were unable to participate in the upcoming Legadue due to debts and instead found a place in the fourth division (DNB) with the intervention of Luciano Capicchioni, who had previously owned the team. At the end of the 2017–18 season, which concluded with the relegation of the first team to Serie C, Capicchioni decided to focus solely on the activities of the youth teams. [2]
This decision was also influenced by a protest staged by a segment of the Rimini public in February 2018 against the Crabs' management, which was criticized for lacking a long-term plan and for causing local fans to lose interest in the city’s team. As a result, a new organization named Rinascita Basket Rimini (RBR) was established in the summer as a counter to the Crabs, who, as previously mentioned, ended their first team’s operations. [3] The new team started its journey from Serie C, achieving promotion to Serie B on its first attempt. In May 2020, the club acquired the historic sports title of the Crabs, effectively incorporating the historic Basket Rimini organization as well. [4] In the 2021–22 season, Rimini clinched promotion to Serie A2, ending a 10-year absence from the second tier.
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Paolo Maggioli
