The lead up to the first leg of the semi-final on Friday was slightly overshadowed by the announcement from the BBL that they had awarded Newcastle Eagles top scorer, Joe Chapman, with the Most Valuable Player award, a fact that does not sit well with the Riders faithful.

They point to the league leading 12 Player of the Week awards (not including the Bench of the Week awards), the three Molten Player of the Month awards (a league record), his averages of 15.7 points, 8.3 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 2.07 steals and 1.05 blocks per game whilst playing 34.4 minutes a night and shooting 66% from the field and the fact that the Jelson Homes DMU Leicester Riders broke a number of records en route to finishing second in the league with 22 wins as the reason Hardy should have been MVP.

Despite all those individual awards, Coach Paternostro says Hardy is not interested in personal glory as he spoke exclusively to www.leicesterriders.co.uk on the reaction following the announcement Hardy had finished second in voting:

“One of the nicest things about Ayron as a basketball player is that he doesn't play for individual awards and doesn't play for stats, he plays to wins games and plays the right way.”

“The guys really wanted him to get it,” said Paternostro. “We're around him every day, we felt for him a little bit and were hoping he'd get it.

“Take nothing away from Joe Chapman who's a great player and I want to congratulate him because he's had a great season but Ayron is one of ours and on a day-in day-out basis, we have seen what he has done for our team.

“With Ayron, the interesting thing is, I never can recall any player who has been more well liked, or well respected in the locker room than Ayron Hardy.

Hardy, again, showed his worth in the first leg of the semi-final, playing big minutes in his team's one point 77-76 defeat on the road to the Glasgow Rocks and going for 21 points on 9 for 11 shooting while pulling down six rebounds (the joint most by anyone on his team).