Basketball
GB Team Start European Preparations
7 August 2007
The Great Britain Men's national team begins their Eurobasket qualification preparations in earnest this week as they face two friendly games against Georgia and a tournament in Croatia starting at the weekend.
London United's Head Coach, and GB Assistant Coach, Tony Garbelotto (pictured), warned that the team face a "baptism of fire" in the impending games,
"We have got a baptism of fire coming from Sunday as we play New Zealand, Croatia, and Finland. Especially Croatia and New Zealand as they are World ranked teams, it's going to be an extreme test and those two games will tell us a lot about where we are at," said the BBL coach.
The 'Tall Blacks' are ranked 12th in the World, whilst the Croats, who are hosting the tournament, are ranked 22nd. GB faces Croatia on Sunday 12th, Finland on Monday 13th, and New Zealand on Tuesday 14th in the mini-tournament.
Before that, on Thursday 9th and Friday 10th, there are two warm-up games against Georgia being played in Pau, France. These represent the first games since the squad was assembled, and for most players will be the first games since the end of last season. Garbelotto commented,
"The first two games against Georgia are going to be those kinds of games where the play won't be of the highest quality as the team gels and the players get themselves back into game shape."
The squad has been together for some three weeks now, as they gathered for a Florida training camp on 20th July. Coach Garbelotto asserted that it was "mission accomplished" as the training camp was an unparalleled success,
"I can't say anything other than mission accomplished! We got exactly what we were trying to do out of it.
"We had an unbelievable experience in Florida, in my view it was the best camp that any Great Britain team has had and was held in NBA-level facilities.
"Obviously having players like Luol Deng, Andy Betts, and Robert Archibald there made it all the better, the standard of play was extremely high.
"Now we are moving into the more important phase, as of today we have 14 days until the first official game and we still have a lot of work to do and a lot to get done."
The Eurobasket qualification campaign tips-off on Tuesday 21st August as GB take on Slovakia at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena. From there they travel to the Netherlands (29th August), before returning to face Albania at Medowbank in Edinburgh on Saturday 1st September. The final group game is a trip to Belarus on Wednesday 5th September.
GB currently sits third in the group after two wins and two defeats last Summer. The winners of each group and the best second-placed team qualify for the playoffs, the two winners of the playoff games are promoted to the Eurobasket A division.
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