GB Women Ready for Eurobasket Challenge
The GB Women begin their first 2011 Eurobasket finals campaign on Saturday, a task that head coach Tom Maher feels the team, despite perhaps lacking the experience of their competition, is prepared for.
“We’re really looking forward to it. We have to get down to playing our style of basketball, we’re not in it for the short term. We have to play our game, and build for the next ten years.
“Our goals are to be the best we can, win some games, and finish with the respect of people of Britain. We’ve just started the programme really, and only now are we getting into the world games level. “
Britain’s first two games see them face sides who reached the final four of last summer’s World Championship, as they play semi-finalists Belarus on Saturday and beaten finalists Czech Republic on Sunday. They wrap up the first stage on Monday with a game against Israel, but Maher dismisses any idea that GB will be concentrating on that final game in order to reach the second phase:
“We’re taking each game as it comes, and it would be a disaster if we didn’t set out to win each game. We’ll stay with our style of game, and go flat out to win each night. If you don’t aim to stay in good form, you hurt your chances of winning the next night. We’re going for glory. We’re fit and healthy, and ready to go.”
GB need to finish in the top three of the group to progress to the second stage, but take their record against the other two qualifiers with them, so every game is vital.
Centre Azania Stewart is also looking forward to the tournament:
“I’m really excited, it’s the biggest competition any of us have ever played in.
“We’ve been talking about what we need to do as a team so that we win at least one game. We want to show that Great Britain basketball should be taken seriously. The Israel game is probably the big one, but we’re determined to make sure we don’t roll over against the other teams, and we’ll give 100 percent in every game.”
All of GB’s games will be streamed live on the BBC Sport website and BBC Red Button, starting ten minutes before the scheduled tip-off time.
TV Schedule (all times BST)
Saturday
Great Britain vs Belarus 13:50
Sunday
Great Britain vs Czech Republic 19:20
Monday
Great Britain vs Israel 13.50
Should GB progress to the next stage, the subsequent games will also be shown.
Image: Dan Wooller/wooller.com
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