Lewis Reflects on Tournament So Far - Hoopsfix.com

Lewis Reflects on Tournament So Far

Great Britain Under-20s head coach Tim Lewis has admitted his side didn’t come together until after their loss against Portugal and they can’t rely on other teams’ results going their way to advance.

The GB U20s entered this year’s Division B European Championships with higher expectations than any previous U20s side as they featured a wealth of talent led by San Antonio Spurs draft pick Ryan Richards and Caja Laboral point guard Devon Van Oostrum.

However, two early losses to Portugal then Finland sealed their fate, as they failed to advance out of the group. Since then, they have won five consecutive games, but due to the tournament’s format haven’t been able to avoid the 13th-16th place classification games, after an Israeli victory over Finland yesterday.

Talking to the British Basketball website, Lewis reflected on the tournament so far:

“It was disappointing to see Israel beat Finland by a point with the Finns missing a lay-up on the buzzer. I think that was the first lay-up they’ve missed all tournament, and it hurt us. The players were obviously disappointed, because at the very least we deserve to be playing for ninth.

“But, it all goes back to the Portugal game when we didn’t play as a team, after that we came together as a group. We had a chance to beat Finland, but it didn’t go our way, and clearly we can’t rely on other teams doing the right thing when it comes to them winning games.”

Looking ahead to GB’s game against Romania, who are 3-4, on Saturday evening, Lewis said:

“Romania are a good team, but they’ve had limited success this tournament. It will be interesting to see what happens next season with two of Serbia, Lithuania, Croatia and Austria coming down, the level of competition here is high.”

GB will be looking for their sixth consecutive victory, as they try to grasp 13th place.

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