GB BLOWN APART

 

(Image taken from MVP24/7)

Well the first of my trips around the country in the name of GB basketball this year was up to Newcastle to see our guys face what looked to be a tough Macedonia side. We beat them on that occasion 104-96 but that required overtime - and that was on our court! Still, 2-0 has since become 5-0. So now it was time for Finchy, Luol and crew to head for Skopje for what was garunteed to be by far the toughest game of Eurobasket Division A Group B for us. And yet people were talking "win and we're off to Lithuania". That much was true at least. So, another dodgy online feed for a GB away game and Macedonian TV apparantly can't even afford clock graphics and resorted to FibaEurope.com screen dumps for their half time stats! Their basketball team is still good though.

Well the opening stages of the quarter were slow and grinding with Macedonia opening the scoring before we levelled with a jumper of our own. After that the two sides exchanged three pointers before GB went on to take a 9-5 lead with 5:22 left in the opening quarter. After that though, things started to come apart for GB as the homeside found their range from three point land though we certainly looked to stay in the match to start with. And then the Macedonians really did take over as just weren't able to get our shots off yet they whacking us from down town. Dimitar Mirokovski was the main guy burning us early on, leading with 10 points. We were down 22-14 at the first buzzer.

In the early stages of the 2nd quarter we tried to stay in the game and were able to succsessfully restrain the Macedonians to start with, though the first few minutes were quiet. We were managing to hold the gap steady for a while though and cut the gap to five before the Macedonians got nervous and called a timeout. That was about as nervous as they got. Our defence was sluggish. The guys were firing off three pointers which was the right idea but it helps if you make them. In short we were being smothered by both fair means and foul but the guys were just not with it. Todor Gechevski's three point shooting had become our main problem and he was on 11 points and we were down 43-27 at half time. Still doable but we needed to step it up.

Instead though the Macedonians pretty much shut us down in the early stages of the 3rd quarter, only one bucket was made, they got it. Eventually we woke up for a bit though and started to finally hit enough threes to at least cut the gap to thirteen with just over six minutes left in the quarter. We needed to do more though and ultimately couldn't. Again the guys were just not with it and it was definately starting to look like it wouldn't be our night. Not much can be said at the end of the period. Their main US mercenary Bo McCalebb was starting to take over now, grabbing himself 18 points. We were down 58-38. If I was a neutral I wouldn't have switched off yet but it was looking a long way back from there.

To kick start our miracle comeback we needed to hit a lot of long bombs. It didn't happen. Instead what appeared to happen was a Macedonian demo session. With the clock ticking we were clearly being taken to pieces. That continued till well into the latter stages untill finally GB had their best spell of play in the entire game! Talk about too little too late though - there's a reason why the Yanks call this stage "garbage time" - that's about as much as that effort meant. Still we got the gap under twenty in the last seconds but still, McCalebb finished on 20 points, Predrag Semardiski backing him up on 12 points. We walked off having been whacked 75-56. Seriously ugly.

Elsewhere, well Macedonia faced us off the back of an 85-82 defeat to Hungary in Szolnok which made them seem relatively vulnerable for a bit - pity they then found form again. That same night, Ukraine beat Bosnia 87-69 in Dnepropetrovsk in what was an eyebrow raiser but bear in mind that the Bosnians were at nowhere near peak condition due to flight delays. Still, they went on to redeem themselves by beating Hungary 73-64 in Sarejevo. That leaves Great Britain 2nd in Group B with a 5-1 record, having dropped behind Macedonia(5-2) on the more games played technicality but we're still well ahead of 3rd placed Hungary(2-5). Are we still on course for Lithuania.

Well the virtual group of Division A 2nd place teams is currently made up of Italy, Great Britain and Poland. Luckilly, here we can take advantage of the fact that Groups A and C are seriously tight. Therefore, our 5-1 record easilly sees us top of this particular tree with both our rivals on 4-3. So, not only are we still on course for Lithuania but we just have to dot the is and cross the ts on our ticket application.

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