Tony Christie likes Bracknell. Few expected the American to feel that way after a torrid start to his rookie career last season.

Mid-way through the campaign and the whispers were touting that the Clemson graduate was on the way out of Thames Valley Tigers and back across the Atlantic with his tail firmly between his legs.

No so however. After Casey Arena's sudden "departure", suddenly Christie began to flourish. And score. And be the kind of player that Paul James thought he was getting when he signed up him up for duty in stripes the previous summer.

“I’m more comfortable this year,” says Christie. “That’s not to say that it’s any easier to play, because it seems like the level of competition is actually getting better, I’m just more comfortable in my surroundings.”

"I have been pleased with how I’m playing. I have just tried to come back and be more consistent this season and actually it has been working so far. 

“My strengths have really been shooting the three, because right now I think I’m leading the country for three pointers taken. I play to my strengths and I’m really pleased with that."

Christie comes from a fine collegiate programme, which saw him playing at Clemson University alongside London Towers’ Tom Wideman. 

He acknowledges that experience was invaluable to his career.

“It was a great time for me. I got to play against a lot of the best players in the NBA right now, like Tim Duncan – a lot of great players who played a great places like Duke and North Carolina.”

And the leap from NCAA Division 1 basketball to BBL was not quite what he had foreseen.

“I knew some people over here,” Christie explains. “The standard of basketball was actually a lot better than I expected, because it’s played at a much faster pace than I expected it to be and it’s very competitive. Now, I just want to play basketball and I want to take it as far as I can. This is all new to me, because it’s only my second year of being professional, but I’m just trying to get better and better and this is just one stage in my progression.”

He's not just into basketball either. Despite the scholarship which propelled the high schooler into the elite of the NCAA's Atlantic Coast Conference, the athletic talent in that spring body could, Christie declares, have been used in a number of ways..

“My father is in the Air Force and in the Air Force you have the choice of playing every sport imaginable. I played pretty much everything – like tennis and golf and I bowled too – I was pretty good at that. I also played volleyball, football, baseball and lots more. If I had actually stuck with any of the other sport, I probably could have turned professional, but I just played so many different sports growing up. I stuck with basketball because I was kind of tall and that always helps.

“Also, basketball just seemed like the most entertaining for the fans and I like making people smile. Playing basketball, you get to see people’s faces and they get to see your face and it’s all up close and there is really no place to hide.”

It is surprising too that Christie has flourished since the return of John McCord, the man he was initially brought into replace. Suffering by comparision at the outset, Christie has improved still further since the prodigal son came home during the off-season.

The duo have fired Thames Valley into the Cup semi-finals while maintaining a challenge in the league and trophy. Experience counts and Christie is aware of the glories which success can bring.

“I believe that we can win at least one of the titles and contend for them all and we will possibly come away with who knows how many this season," he predicts.

“I look back to Clemson, because we got to the finals of the NIT Championship in Madison Square Garden – that’s one of the big tournaments – and we lost by one point at the buzzer and that was my last college game.

That’s where I draw my experience from and I never want to feel like that again. That and the experience last year of getting to the Championship quarter-finals and then not going that far, both those spur me on.”

Maybe Christie has a surprise or too still in store.