MESSY BUT GB OPEN WITH WIN

 

(Image taken from BBC)

Well, the last time GB had to qualify for Eurobasket was for the '09 championships in Poland where we wound up in Division A Group C alongside Israel, Czech Republic and Bosnia. GB were the new guys in town as far as Division A was concerned but with Luol Deng leading the way it certainly didn't seem that way. After losing our opening game in Tel Aviv, there was no stopping us and the only downer was having to watch the matches on dodgy foreign online feeds. We topped the group and booked our tickets to Poland with a game to spare and finished the campaign with a 4-2 record. Not bad for a side that weren't supposed to belong at this level.

This time round, well this time around I will be travelling to GB's home games myself. I would have liked to be heading out to at least one of the away games but by the time the schedule was sorted out, flights were looking a little too expensive. In the meantime having failed to secure a spot in the World Basketball championships via Eurobasket 2009, we have to face another Division A campaign to qualify for Eurobasket 2011 in Lithuania. This time around we face Hungary, Macedonia, Bosnia and the Ukraine in Group B. Winner goes to Lithuania, second place team might to Lithuania(depending on what happens in the other groups) third place team has to deal with an additional qualifying round. Fourth placed team might get into an additional qualifying round. Fifth placed team winds up in a relegation round.

So, first up came a trip to Hungary. Well we didn't have the ideal leadup going into the campaign. Joel Freeland and Robert Archibald both turned out to be unavailable and Ben Gordon...commited himself to team GB then got injured. Still, the players we have should be able to deal with the opposition ahead of us. However, while a trip to Hungary initially looked doable for me, reality said "not so much". A few of the What's Bev crew made it out to the town of Szolnok while the rest of us were left watching a dodgy feed from a Hungarian sports channel(you'd have thought qualifying for Eurobasket 2009 would have changed that). Still, Hungary have looked more likely to get relegated to Division B than make it to Eurobasket in recent years - this looked to be a smooth GB win.

Well Hungary opened the scoring but it was only going to be a matter of time before GB took a 5-2 lead with 8:40 left in the quarter but the home side were clearly not going away any time soon. The two sides duelled for the lead with GB just about able to hold on to an edge. Still, the Hungarian hung in there but going into the last few minutes it was looking as though GB had what it took to end the quarter - or was that speaking too soon? The answer came when we let them bury two threes right before the buzzer! The second of those came from Peter Lorant - Hungary led 29-27 at the end of one and we really should have been in a better position than that.

Well we landed a three pointer of our own early on in the second and though Hungary came back to lead 31-30 with 9:16 left in the half, we were starting to go through the gears. Our defence forced them into a drought of over three minutes. This was more like it. The Hungarians eventually came back but it didn't last - our guys were giving them a serious reality check and it soon became clear that we were going into half time with a solid lead. The bottom line was that they just could not touch Luol Deng. Our main man in the NBA banked himself 20 points before half time and we surged into a 54-42 lead by half time. We just had to keep going.

Slight problem, we didn't. Early in the third Hungary set to work dismantling our half time lead but we were able to tread water to an extent for a bit. Then our play just completely fell apart and the Hungarians were able to take a big bite into our lead. The What's Bev crew went beserk with exasperation as our defence appeared non existent, we couldn't kee[ hold of the ball and couldn't put the ball in the basket. Initially we still held on. However on that sort of form in was only going to be a matter of time before the Hungarians rettok the lead and in the end they led 69-67 at the end of three with Adam Hanger giving us particularly big headaches. We were in danger of getting mugged.

Well the Hungarians opened the scoring in the 4th quarter to lead 71-67 with 9:36 left in the game. The game then went completely dead for ages till a three pointer from us tied the game. Finally we retook the lead and this time kept it for a while, though we were still a long way from sealing the game. A mid quarter drought actually worked in our favour, particularly as we were the ones that broke it, and yet the game was still up for grabs going into the final minutes. The Hungarians however, choked and with Luol grabbing 32 points backed up by Nate Reinking on 16 points. GB won 91-82 and for now, you can't ask for more than that.

Elsewhere, Ukraine played Macedonia in Yuzhnyi. The home side had a solid enough start to their campaign and looked to have the edge on the Eurobasket veterans early on. They held on to their lead in the second quarter and came into half time on course for a major upset, leading 31-30. However the Macedonians were already in the process of turning the game around and by the end of the third quarter, normal service seemed to be resumed for them. The Ukranians simply fell apart in the 4th quarter and led by Pero Antic on 26 points, Macedonia won 71-58 and away from home, that shows that they certainly mean business on this occasion.

So, that leaves Great Britain 2nd in the Group B table on a 1-0 record. We're level with group leaders Macedonia(also 1-0) but have a -4 game points deficit against them while ahead of third placed team Hungary who are 0-1 due to being beaten by us. That still means that we might be on course for Lithuania but at this point it depends what the other 2nd placed teams are up to. We're in one of three groups and only two second placed teams go through to Lithuania.

The three second placed teams right now are Israel, Great Britain and Bulgaria, all of whom were in Eurobasket '09. At this point only two of these sides are on course to go through. All three sides are level at 1-0 at this point. However GB has a +1 game points advantage over both Israel and Bulgaria at this point. It's not much, but it's more than what's separating Israel and Bulgaria which is points scored. Either way it means that GB are on course for Lithuania as things stand.

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