GB U20s Rout Scotland in Warmup Games

The Great Britain Under-20s eased into their preparation for the Division B European Championships this summer with two easy victories over the Scotland Under-23s this weekend at the Braintree Campus, Colchester.

The games were a chance for Head Coach Tim Lewis to assess his 19-man squad in game situations in anticipations of cuts this week.

In the first match-up on Saturday, it took GB three quarters to find their rhythm before they eventually routed Scotland 77-50 behind a 26-8 fourth period. Great Britain were led by 22 points from sharpshooter Adam Thoseby, Canadian-based John Bantock added 10, Ryan Richards 9, Devon Van Oostrum and Levi Noel with 8 points each and Will Hall added 6.

On Sunday the GB U20s had less trouble dispatching of Scotland, coming out with 86-65 victory. Ryan Richards provided the initial spark, having 13 points and 7 rebounds in 7 first quarter minutes to give GB a 25-9 at the first break. The lead was stretched to 52-21 at the half with Scotland having no answers for Richards or the rest of the GB squad.

In the second half Lewis predominantly ran his fringe players, allowing Scotland to capitalise-winning both the third (23-19) and fourth (21-14) quarters.

Richards was dominant in limited minutes, finishing with 17 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 blocks in a little over 15 first half minutes (check video of Ryan’s highlights here). Adam Thoseby had 15, Will Saunders 12, Alasdair Fraser 10, Jack Thompson 9, Lee Goldsbrough and Shore Adenekan 6 a piece.

Tim Lewis is happy with how the first three days have gone so far;

“It was good for our preparations. The first three sessions gave us the opportunity to look at players we haven’t seen before, so it was very positive all round.

“The venue is good for us, it’s a great floor and we’ve had it to ourselves. It’ll be good to come back here in July.”

The squad will now return to training camp before taking on Holland in back to back games in Bristol on the 25th and 26th June.

Notes

• Starters on Saturday-Devon Van Oostrum, Levi Noel, Will Hall, Lee Goldsbrough and Ryan Richards (with Ali Mackay, Harrison Gamble, John Bunyan, Jack Thompson, Shore Adenekan sitting out). On Sunday the starters were Lee Reilly, Josh Houghton, Alasdair Fraser, Lee Goldsbrough and Ryan Richards (with Ali Mackay, Harrison Gamble, John Bantock, Devon Van Oostrum and Will Hall sitting out).
• Ali Mackay and Harrison Gamble were both sitting out with injuries.
• Interesting that John Bantock is actually at the camp and with the team. It was being reported on Canadian news sites that John Bantock had an invite, but when the official list went out, he wasn’t on it.
• Alex Marcotullio is not yet with the team whilst he attends to college commitments. He will join camp at a later stage and is pretty much a dead cert to be in the final squad.
• Richards was impressive on Sunday and looked good despite not having played competitively for a year. The crossover and dunk was crazy, and then when take into account he’s 7 foot, it makes it all the more impressive. He looked like a man on a mission.
• Difficult to read too much into performances because of constant rotations and the inferiority of Scotland. The games later this month will be a truer test and probably have rotations more indicative of how they’ll be playing in the Euros, with cuts having been made.
• Adam Thoseby is an offensive powerhouse, showing a very nice shooting touch (nothing new).
• First time seeing Alasdair Fraser in action-do not want to get caught on a blind pick by this kid-he is WIDE!  True big man, with some nice post moves and a hard worker.
• Will Saunders did extremely well offensively in his limited minutes on Sunday, and was said to be decent on Saturday too.
• Lee Goldsbrough appears to have put on weight in his year at Providence. Looks to be carrying a lot more muscle on his frame than last year and looks better for it.
• First cuts are expected to happen today, and I’d say based on this weekend, it would be pretty easy to take the team down to 14 right away.