GB Drawn in ‘Group of Death’ For Eurobasket 2011

By Sam Neter on January 31, 2011

The Eurobasket 2011 draw was held yesterday in Vilnius, Lithuania, lighting a fire amongst conspiracy theorists after Great Britain was drawn in Group A-against defending champions Spain, Lithuania and Turkey, who were second and third respectively in last years world championships, Poland and one other yet to be decided qualifier.

The group couldn’t be tougher for GB, who potentially will have to get to the semi-finals of the tournament to get their place at the London Olympics in 2012 if FIBA don’t grant them an automatic birth on March 12th/13th-a decision FIBA has been accused of not wanting to happen on a number of occasions.

Head Coach Chris Finch however, is not particularly phased by the draw:

“For me it’s less about the strength of any group and more about getting the strongest team together. If we can accomplish that we have a chance to do some nice things. If not, then all the groups are equally difficult. With the draw complete we can now finalise our planning and begin putting some details in place. We can also now visualise our competition and the things we need to focus on to be successful.”

GB captain Drew Sullivan is under no illusions about the difficulty of the draw:

“I think we’ve certainly drawn a tough group with the teams in Group A, but at the same time I believe if we can get all our guys together it will put us in good stead. I think of all the teams we would have preferred not to have drawn Lithuania as, being the host nation, they will have huge support from their home crowd which goes a long way to help teams do well in a tournament like this.

“We knew that no group would have been a push over but from our stand point we have to put the best team together that we possibly can, have a good training camp and prepare for the competition ahead.”

EuroBasket 2011 First Round Draw Results:

GROUP A	GROUP B	GROUP C	GROUP D
Spain	Serbia	Greece	Slovenia
Turkey	France	Croatia	Russia
Lithuania	Germany	Montenegro	Belgium
Great Britain	Israel	F.Y.R. of Macedonia	Georgia
Poland	Italy	Bosnia And Herzegovina	Bulgaria
Qualifier 2	Latvia	Qualifier 1	Ukraine

What do you think? Will you be travelling to Lithuania? How do you feel about GB’s chances? Drop a comment and let us know!

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