Zonkeys de Tijuana
- Leagues Played
- Mexico - CIBACOPA 220
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Wikipedia - Tijuana Zonkeys
The Zonkeys de Tijuana are a Mexican professional basketball team based in Tijuana, Baja California. The Zonkeys are part of the Circuito de Baloncesto de la Costa del Pacífico (CIBACOPA). They play their home games at the Auditorio Academia Zonkeys. The team was founded in 2010, and won back-to-back championships in 2014 and 2015.
The name comes from the tradition of painting stripes on to donkeys to resemble zebras, a practice once common on the city's famed tourist strip, Avenida Revolución. Tourists would pay to take pictures with or on the zonkeys.
History
The team was founded in 2010 and entered the league the same year. It became the first professional basketball team to play in Tijuana since the LNBP's Cosmos de Tijuana and the Tijuana Dragons of the ABA. They won their first championship in 2014 with a 4-3 finals series win over Caballeros de Culiacán.
They defeated the Halcones de Ciudad Obregón in the 2018 finals in a six-game series.
In December 2019, ex-NBA player Henry Bibby was hired as head coach ahead of the 2020 season. They also opened a new arena, the Auditorio Academia Zonkeys, moving their home games from the Auditorio Fausto Gutierrez Moreno.
Zonkeys spiller deres hjemmekampe i Gimnasio de los Zonkeys, som har en kapacitet på 5.222 tilskuere. Klubbens farver er sort, gul og hvid, og deres maskot er en zebra.
Zonkeys har været mestre i LNBP én gang, i sæsonen 2019-20. De har også vundet to andre mesterskaber ved CIBACOPA, en basketballliga, der fandt sted i den nordvestlige del af Mexico fra 1970 til 2020.
Nogle af holdets mest fremtrædende spillere gennem årene har været Jorge Gutiérrez, Román Martínez og Garret Siler.