Our history of basketball in East Kent started in 1961, with a pair of bright red Converse Chuck Taylor All Star basketball boots. John Riches had moved to Canterbury and wanted to put his boots to use. Unfortunately, there were no teams in the Canterbury area so he contacted the local press to see if there were any other basketball players out there. Twenty people replied and a meeting was held at the Bell and Crown pub in Canterbury, from which the Friars Basketball Team was born.

Following on from this, the group of likeminded basketball enthusiasts decided that a local league should be started, so yet again a meeting was held in the Bell and Crown pub, and together they formed the East Kent Basketball Association.

In the late summer of 1962 the first East Kent Basketball competitions began with the Division 1 League (Hermitage Cup) and the KCPFA Cup, which was later renamed to the Adrian Cook Cup in 1996.

By 1964 there were enough teams playing to form a second division, and in 1965 separate competitions were also established for Women which consisted of a Women’s League and the Grove Cup.

Over the years further divisions and other competitions were provided to cater for the demand of the local basketball community, including the Adams Plate competition in 1976. In the past there was three Men's divisions, a Canterbury League and a Women’s League. However, many of the clubs that once played are no longer in operation, hence the East Kent Basketball Leagues have been condensed down to the Men’s League and Women’s League that we have today, both with a single division. It has become the tradition that the end of the each season is marked with the EKBA Final’s Day, when the finals of the Adrian Cook Cup, Grove Cup and Adams Plate are played.