Raftopoulos is in his first senior coaching role

Guildford Heat coach Creon Raftopoulos has scooped the November coach of the month award after three league wins and safe passage to the BBL Trophy final.

The Zimbabwean replaced player-coach Chad McKnight in the summer after the club's worst season since formation.

Raftopoulos told BBC Surrey: "Credit [must go] to the team. When the team wins, [it's] great players. When the team loses, [it's a] bad coach."

Guildford have lost just twice in the league this season.

The appointment of Raftopoulos came as something of a surprise as it was his first senior coaching role, but he is delighted to have confounded the sceptics.

"Like anybody else going into a job out there, I did have my few critics," he said. "I never addressed it at the time; I just let the results do the talking.

But Raftopoulos is aware that monthly awards often seem to act as a curse on a team.

"Every single game that we go into now, people are going to pay attention, and not take us lightly," he said. "So this is the point that we need to raise our game - they're not going to take us softly any more."

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