Football team

Kyoto Hannaryz

Club · Japan · B League

«Hannaryz»

355 Matches

127 wins

227 losses

27365–28994 Points

−1629 Difference

77.1 Average per match

Form L L W L L W

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf spent two seasons in Kyoto colours, from 2009 to 2011. The team took its name from the Kyoto dialect word "hannari," meaning elegant and bright. Sports Communication Kyoto Co., Ltd. put the club together, and by the time it took the floor for the 2009–10 season the name had already been public for the better part of a year.

The nearest thing to a golden run came under head coach Honoo Hamaguchi, who took Kyoto to the bj-League Final Four in both 2012 and 2013. No championship followed either trip, and the club has yet to win a title across the bj-League, the NBL or the B.League, but those two seasons remain the high point of the record.

Home games are played at Kyoto City Gymnasium, known locally as Hannaryz Arena, where a renovation finished in 2013–2014 tore out the old bench seating and left the ground with 2,500 individual seats. Games against Osaka Evessa and against the club now known as Shimane Susanoo Magic are billed locally as the Kansai Derby, the closest thing Kyoto has to a rivalry with real history behind it.

Alongside the imports who have passed through — Ekpe Udoh and Joshua Smith among the more recognisable names — the roster has leaned on university-trained Japanese players such as Satoru Maeda and Ryoma Ono. Kyoto goes into the current B.League season still chasing the trophy that eluded even the Hamaguchi years.

Latest results

Fixtures and results

3 May	B League	Nagasaki A	84:63	W
2 May	B League	Nagasaki A	94:105	L
26 Apr	B League	Osaka H	83:92	L
25 Apr	B League	Osaka H	88:78	W
22 Apr	B League	Gunma Crane Thunders A	66:84	L
19 Apr	B League	SeaHorses Mikawa H	85:94	L