Flint United heads into 2022 season with new players, leadership, motivation

Flint, MI–After an inaugural season that left much to be desired, Flint United will start its 2022 season with new management and a roster full of players ready to take on their recently expanded league. 

With the first game of the season less than two months away, Flint United Head Coach, Keno Davis, said he feels both team leadership and players are “focused on putting a great product on the court.”

The Basketball League expanded over the last year to include a host of new teams, including some international teams from Canada. Davis, who joined Flint United in late 2021, said he expects the expansion of the league will make for more varied and better playing styles across the teams. Hopefully, Davis said, these changes will motivate Flint United players to further expand their skills and quality of play. 

“One of the reasons that I was so excited to join (Flint United) is because this league, it’s pretty new and it’s making a pretty big jump this year from quantity of teams … this is going to give players a better opportunity to advance professionally and I think you’re going to see that with Flint United and really across the country,” Davis said. 

With the start of the season approaching, Davis said the team will spend the next three weeks or so finalizing their roster. Through a series of open and invitation-only tryouts, Davis said Flint United has the opportunity to potentially sign a host of promising up-and-comers. 

“We’re excited about what the team is going to look like. The first couple tryouts we had some really quality individuals show up and I was hopeful that that’s what we were going to get and I think we’re going to see that only continue to increase. There are some really great players in the Flint area … ,” Davis said.

Kevin Mays, owner of Flint United, said he is looking forward to the team returning in March. 

After having had a chance to work out some of the kinks that come with launching a brand new sports franchise, Mays said Flint United will be returning this spring with a renewed focus on becoming a part of the community. 

With the last four years of so seeing the creation of Flint City soccer, handball and basketball teams among others, Mays said it is important for Flint United to embrace the sports renaissance the city seems to be going through. 

“We are bringing and paring new and current sets of eyes and looking for the highest level of talent to build and grow a bigger foundation of basketball. We have hundreds and hundreds of kids who strive to be at that next level of collegiate and professional sports. We want to utilize the knowledge from these players and coaches and managers to shed light on the community as a whole and be able to attract the talent that’s in this city,” Mays said. 

Flint United’s first game of the 2022 season will be against Kokomo Bobcats and will be played inside the Dort Financial Center. Tickets will go on sale starting Friday, Jan. 7 and will be available for purchase on the Dort Financial Center website.