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National Superior Basketball

National Superior Basketball —or Baloncesto Superior Nacional (BSN) in Spanish— is the main Puerto Rican men's basketball league. It currently has 12 teams, but has had many teams in several cities of the island. The league was established in 1932. It has produced players that have distinguished themselves in the NBA, European Leagues, and other leagues.

Each team plays 30 or 33 games per season. The regular season is followed by a round robin pitting the best 8 teams against each other, then the best four teams compete in a semi-final series playing for the best of seven games. The season concludes with the finals, here two teams compete in the best of seven games.

The Bayamon Cowboys are the current leaders in all time championships with fourteen. The San German Athletics have thirteen, and the Ponce Lions have twelve.

History

The BSN was a struggling league economically until the 1980s, when, with Genaro 'Tuto' Marchand as President, an explosion of basketball popularity happened all over Puerto Rico. Basketball overtook baseball as the Puerto Rican fans' second favorite sport after boxing at that time.

The fact that WAPA-TV Channel 4 transmitted six games a week for the whole island to see, was a major contributor to this change in popularity. These games were shown Sundays at 2 p.m., Sundays at 9 p.m., Wednesday nights at 9, Friday nights at 9, and Saturdays at 2 p.m. and at 9 p.m..

During that time, other legends followed in the footsteps of Juan "Pachin" Vicens (Named Greatest Basketball Player in the World at the Basketball World Championship, held in Santiago, Chile, 1959). Among those younger stars, various bright stars soon emerged, such as Mario 'Quijote' Morales, Raymond Dalmau, Jose 'Piculin' Ortiz, Jerome Mincy, Georgie Torres, Angelo Cruz, Angel Santiago, the late Federico 'Fico' Lopez and Ruben Rodriguez showcased their talents to all of Puerto Rico's TV viewers and game goers.

After Hetin Reyes took the league over there were economic problems, but in part this is due to the rise in the cost of living. Nevertheless, the league continues to operate with 13 franchises but is looking at the future with optimism.

Currently, the leagues games are showcased on Puerto Rico's TUTV television channel.

Although some conssesions have been made, even offering Santurce fans free rides on the Tren Urbano train system so that they can attend away games at Bayamon, the league continued suffering monetary loss in 2005, and the basketball tournament was drastically reduced to only nine competing teams. In order to try to attract more fans to the venues in which the tournament is being played.

For the 2007 Season, the Morovis team moved to Fajardo and two teams joined back the league, Mayagüez Indians and Carolina Giants.

2008-present

Prior to the inauguration of the 2008 season, Henry Neumann rennounced the president's chair and entered politics. Felix "Felo" Rivera, at the moment owner of the Caguas Creoles was selected to succeed him. Rivera debuted as president on September 22, 2007, when he presided a reunion with most of the league's staff and other members of the sports community in Puerto Rico. The reunion extended to ten hours and served primarily as a ceremony to officially present him as the BSN president. Several changes to the league's rules were discussed, with two being adopted. The first one being a 50% penalty to franchises with payrolls larger than the $500,000 top. This had been approved before in 2004 and only Santurce and Ponce failed to meet the salary top, however it was abandoned following the conclusion of that season. The main difference was that in the new rule the money that the league received with the penalty would be awarded to teams that dodn't violate the top. The second rule approved was that restrictions on second "reforce" players were dropped, noting that the quality of immigrant players was supposed to rise. In the reunion the league announced that the 2008 tournament would be inaugurated on March 1, 2008, earlier than in previous years. When September concluded Miguel Laborde was replaced by Juan Trinidad as the BSN's tournament director.

Teams

Division	Team	City	Colors	Arena	Founded
Metro Division	Bayamón Cowboys	Bayamón	Blue, White	Ruben Rodriguez Coliseum	1930
	Carolina Giants	Carolina	Red,White	Guillermo Angulo Coliseum
	Fajardo Cariduros	Fajardo	Red, Blue	Tomas Dones Coliseum
	Guaynabo Conquistadores	Guaynabo	Blue, Silver	Mario Morales Coliseum
	Humacao Grays	Humacao	Yellow, Green, Red	Emilio E. Huyke Coliseum
	Santurce Crabbers	Santurce	White, Orange, Blue	José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum
Isla Division	Caguas Creoles	Caguas	Red, Black, White	Héctor Solá Besares Coliseum	1976
	Arecibo Captains	Arecibo	Blue, Yellow	Manuel Iguina Coliseum
	Guayama Wizards	Guayama	Brown, Yellow	Dr. Roque Nido Stella Coliseum
	Mayaguez Indians	Mayagüez	Green, Red	Palacio de los Deportes
	Ponce Lions	Ponce	Red, Black	Juan Pachín Vicéns Auditorium	1950
	San Germán Athletics	San Germán	Orange	Arquelio Torres Ramírez Coliseum	1932

Inactive Teams

Currently, there are two inactive team remaining in the league; the Quebradillas Pirates and the Coamo Marathon Runners. Due to financial problems, Quebradillas has been inactive since the end of the 2004 season. In August 2006, it was announced that the Quebradillas Pirates will return to active competition in the 2008 season. However, this was pushed back to the 2009 season due to the construction of a new Coliseum.

The team from Coamo announced at the end of the 2007 season that they would not participate in the 2008 tournament due to financial problems.

2007 Season

Fico Lopez Division

Team	Wins	Losses	Percentage
Fajardo Cariduros	19	11	.633
Santurce Crabbers	17	13	.567
Arecibo Captains	17	13	.567
Carolina Giants	16	14	.533
Guaynabo Conquistadors	14	16	.467
Bayamon Cowboys	14	16	.467
Humacao Grays	11	19	.367