A new champion will be crowned in the Bermuda Basketball Association League at The Berkeley Institute on Saturday.

Young Goatz, last season’s champions, are out of contention to defend their title after losing 46-42 to The Kings in the play-off semi-finals last Saturday. Kings, a team assembled this year, go in search of their first title when they clash with The Answer, who defeated Belco Bangers in the other semi-final.

Jason Lowe, speaking for the Kings, is expecting another big performance after they knocked out the defending champions.

“It’s really rewarding for us to be in the final,’’ Lowe said. “We finished in fifth but I knew that we were better than our seeding. It feels good to win those first two games and we find ourselves in the final on Saturday.

“On Saturday, we played Young Goatz who were the favourites to win it all and we beat them by four points. We lost both games to them during the regular season, so it was nice to knock out the top seed.

Kings will be missing one of their best players but Lowe feels his side match up well against their opponents.

“For the final we’re missing Gikai Clarke, one of our key players, but that’s been our story for the whole season as we never really had a full team,” Lowe said.

“The final should go well and we should match up well against The Answer. They’re a good team, a younger team.

“They've got two young guys trying to break into the national team and they've got one veteran who used to play in the national team, so they've got a good well-rounded team that could score a lot of points.

“Our defence will be the difference and our execution on offence will see us through. I'm thinking that we’re going to come out victorious on Saturday night.

“We’re going to put on a show and we’re going to do what we need to do to secure the win. It’s going to be a competitive basketball match, and it should be really exciting.”

Troy Pitcher, a representative for Answer is looking to Saturday’s final to finally bring an end to his own title drought.

“It seems to be a repeat for me as I've been to a lot of finals but haven't won one yet,’’ Pitcher told The Royal Gazette.

“I'm actually looking forward to this finally being the one. I always enjoy the challenge of actually trying to put the team together, having all the personalities come together for the focus of actually getting together to be in the finals, and also to win it.

“We've some really good guys who are starting to click. They play hard and have bought into the philosophy of what we’re trying to do as a team.”