GB WOMEN STUN EUROPE

 

(Image taken from FIBA Europe)

So, the NBA season is over and now it's time to start thinking about the trip to Lithuania and Eurobasket right? Well...not quite. As awesome as Luol and the guys are, the fact is that the GB women's team proved to be pretty impressive in their own right during last year's Eurobasket Women qualifiers - good enough to earn themselves a trip to Poland for the main tournament. No I do not have enough money in my bank account to visit Poland and Lithuania in the same year - credit to the BBC for allowing us to catch the action on the red button. The girls were drawn in Group B, based out of the city of Bydgoszcz alongside Belarus, Czech Republic and Israel.

The tournament format is the same as Eurobasket 2009 was. The tournament started with four groups of four teams. Top three teams from each group go through one of two six-team second round groups with relevant results from the first round carrying over to the second round. The fact is that no one going into the tournament were seriously expecting GB to do anything in this tournament - just being the first British women's side to make to Eurobasket since England in 1981 was seen as a pretty impressive achievement in it's own right. Still, it's not like the girls had anything to lose. Even if hardly any Brits made it out there to support them.

First up was Belarus. Well GB opened the scoring at 2-0 with 9:35 lift in the 1st quarter, Belarus fired off a three pointer in response but that was followed by a scoreless period of over three minutes. GB were showing that they had a top quality defence but their opponents were still holding on at the end of the opening period. The early stages of the 2nd quarter saw the Belarussians really take over though, managing to hit shots from long range while GB were unable to really get their offence going. GB put on the brakes for a bit but their opponents were still cruising down the stretch. Katsiaryna Snytsina was our biggest problem with 9 points. GB down 31-20 at the half.

Again GB's defence proved solid early in the 3rd and our girls cut the gap to ten with just over eight mins left in the period but Belarus came back from that. GB were getting a pretty serious reality check, though the game wasn't quite a write off with a period to go. Ultimately our girls looked like theiy had run out of fuel in the early stages of the 4th though and the deficit hit twenty points, forcing coach Mahler to call a timeout and at the very least get some pride back into the performance. Holding Belarus scoreless for four minutes looked like a pretty positive omen but this was first and foremost a learning experience. Anastasiya Verameyenka led our tormentors with 10 points and 7 rebounds. GB lost 55-40.

Next up came the Czech Republic. The opening minute of the game was completely scoreless before the Czechs eventually opened the scoring and maintained the edge for the first few minutes. Yet the Czechs were then shut down and GB took over for the rest of the period, leading 13-9 in an awesome display. Slight problem, while our defence was choking the Czechs in the lane, our opponents were more than happy to resort to three pointers and we couldn't do much about those. We managed to rein the Czechs in to a reasonable extent Katerina Elhotova was our main headache with 7 points. Czechs led 27-23 but this wasn't a disgrace.

GB's first order of business was to cut the deficit to three with a free throw but then we just got bombed from three point land again. GB's offence just completely fell apart and the gap stretched to double digits yet this game was still not a complete write off going into the final period. After an exchange of buckets early in the 4th, the game went quiet for over four minutes but that was only half the job GB needed to do, was a comeback in the works. The answer once again turned out to be no. Again GB impressised with the defence but with our star player not fully fit we weren't going to beat the tournament favourites. Elhotova finished with 27 points, backed up by Jena Vesela with 10. GB lost 60-45.

Finally, came Israel. Again the opening minute of the game was scoreless but this time GB opened the scoring though eventually had the edge early on. GB replied with a three pointer and the two sides duelled for the lead with Israel seeming to have gained the edge, leading 11-8 with 1:55 left in the opener but our girls turned it round before the buzzer. Our girls then went on to go on a 15-0 win the the Israeli coach looking like Saruman facing the Ents! For the first time in the tournament the girls were really firing on all cylinders with the opponents getting into foul trouble in their attempts to stop them! Natalie Stafford led the way with 8 points. GB were leading 37-24 - it was a great day to be a GB basketball fan.

The Israelis were obviously desperate but GB were able to cruise through the early stages of the third quarter though Israel cut the gap to twelve with just under six minutes left in the period. The GB girls just kept punding their opponents though - probably the best display I've ever seen from them, though an Israeli buzzer beating three pointer suggested the game was not over yet. Fact is though, it soon became pretty obvious that it was, yet Mahler warned the girls against complacency after they let the Israelis get an open three pointer. After that, no worries. Jo Leedham finally came to the party and though still recoverying from knee trouble, finished with 18 points. GB won 74-51 and for the first time ever, a GB team has won a game at Eurobasket. Not only that but it was with an unexpected level of class.

Elsewhere, the Czech Republic beat Israel 72-56 with Eva Vitekova leading the victors with 14 points in a display that the Czechs ran from start to finish. Belarus then beat Israel 68-41 with the victors led by Tatsiana Likhtarovich on 13 points in another display in which the Israelis were dominated, with the 4th quarter proving particularly bad. Finally, the Czech Republic beat Belarus 67-62 with the Czechs blowing their opponents out of the water in the 1st quarter and then Katarina Elhotova finished with 19 points. That meant that GB finished 3rd in Group B with a 1-2 record, beating down Israel's 0-3 to, against all odds, qualify for the second round's Group E.

Group E will also take place in Bydgoszcz. Due to their defeats to the Czechs and Belarussians in the first round, GB will start with a handicap of a 0-2 record and a -30 points difference deficit, meaning that they start in 6th place. The Czech Republic(2-0) and Belarus(1-1) join us in that group but our girls won't have to deal with them again. The teams we will need to deal with are Lithuania(2-0), Russia(1-1) and Turkey(0-2 with with only a -21 points difference deficit). The mission of Tom Mahler and the girls here is to finish 4th in the group(that spot is currently occupied by Russia) and reach the quarter finals. I suspect that'll be easier said than done - who knows though?

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