GB Women Lose to Turkey, Will Not Advance

Great Britain will not advance past the second round of the 2011 Eurobasket Women after a 64-57 defeat against Turkey combined with a Russian victory over Czech Republic, meant their hopes of a quarter final appearance were dashed on Saturday.

Tom Maher’s team trailed by 11 points midway through the final quarter, but fought back to make it a two point game going into the final 80 seconds before Turkey sealed the game from the free-throw line. Mathematically they were still in it at that point, but Russia defeating Czech Republic later that afternoon eliminated the slim hope they had.

Jo Leedham couldn’t hide her disappointment after the loss:

“It’s very disappointing again, but there are positives. We’ll look back and think we could have changed things or done things differently.

“We were on a high after we’d got it back to two points, but we missed a crucial box-out and I missed a shot which proved to be a big turning point. It was at a crucial phase, and that was a real blow and knocked the wind out of us.”

Point guard Stef Collins looked on the positive side after the defeat:

“It was a battle, but we knew they are a decent team  and it would be tough. We fought well, but we didn’t execute well down the stretch. But it’s been a big learning curve for us.”

Natalie Stafford had her best offensive game of the tournament so far as she finished with 18 points, adding five rebounds and two assists in nearly 35 minutes of action.

Julie Page had a 12 point-13 rebound double double, while Jo Leedham had 11 points. Kim Butler had 4 points and 8 rebounds, whilst Azania Steward finished with 7 and 3.

For the boxscore and statistics click here.

GB will now be playing for pride against Russia on Monday (2.30pm BST, live online or the BBC red button).

Image: Mansoor Ahmed Photography