KRASTINA THE DIFFERENCE AS GB EDGED OUT

By Niall Gray on June 2, 2013

Great Britain’s women now have another mission at EuroBasket Women: Revenge. In their final warm-up friendly, Damian Jennings’ side were edged 56-54 on Sunday by Latvia who they’ll meet again in the first round in France.

It left GB 3-5 from their preparation schedule. But they came close to coming out on topÂ in Sodertalje, Sweden before falling at the last.

A dramatic finale saw Great Britain lead 54-53 on a Chantelle Handy basket with 22 seconds remaining, only for Latvia’s Ieva Krastina to score a buzzer-beating three-pointer.

Jennings will now await the hoped-for addition of Jo Leedham before naming his 12-strong European squad this week. But he remains satisfied with the build-up.

“Weâ€™re obviously disappointed to lose on a buzzer-beating three,” he said. “But weâ€™ve seen some great growth over this whole tournament and it highlighted some of the areas we’ve got to stay away from in our basketball.

“I think we both sized each other up very well in this game and we’ve certainly got things to work on at both ends of the floor.”

In a low scoring opening quarter, GB kept Latvia scoreless for long stretches and established a 12-4 lead, before Latvia hit back with a 7-0 run to trail 12-11 at the break.

The scoring pace increased in the second with Kim Butler and Handy combining for 18 points in the quarter, giving Great Britain a 34-31 advantage at the half.

A tight third quarter saw GB increase their lead to 44-40, but during the final period the lead changed hands five times in the last three minutes before Latvia sealed the win on the buzzer.

Handy enjoyed a good scoring performance for a second straight game, leading all scorers with 18 points while Kim Butler recorded a double-double of 17 points and 10 rebounds.

“We started out really well, implementing what we needed to and running the court, and we were really in sync today,” said Butler. “It was a well-fought game but it came down to tough shots at the end.

“It’s frustrating but that’s basketball. We hit a good shot in the corner and they came back and scored at the buzzer, but we’re coming out of this tournament positive.”

GB will return to their Surrey training camp to continue preparations for their opening EuroBasket group game against Serbia on June 15.

“We’ve got two days now of recovery for the players and then we move into our last phase of training,” said Jennings.

“We’ve got plenty of detail to improve on and I think we’re all excited about all we can do before we travel to France.”

Do you like our work?

We have a tiny favour to ask. In 2018 we set out to make Hoopsfix sustainable by building our relationship directly with our readers. Up until now, Hoopsfix has been creating editorials, videos and podcasts to provide sorely missing coverage of the British game and its distinct culture and community.

We have funded Hoopsfix with our freelance work creating basketball media, but sadly that means not only does it fall behind our client’s priorities, but some of those clients are the same organisations we need to report objectively on putting us in a conflicted position.

We want to devote more time to our mission of helping British basketball reach its potential, and produce even more content for the basketball community by making Hoopsfix a sustainable 100% independent business funded directly by our readers through Patreon.

If everyone who enjoys our content chose to support us, our future would be much more secure. For as little as $3 per month, you can support Hoopsfix – and it only takes a minute.

We are tremendously honoured and humbled to have a community of people who value what we do, and we look forward to being at the forefront of the British game as it continues to evolve.

Support Hoopsfix