GB Prepare for First Game of the Summer Against Puerto Rico

Sunday will mark the first time fans will get to see this year’s Great Britain Senior men in action as they take on Puerto Rico at the Copper Box in London (3pm tip), bringing their London 2012 Olympic journey full circle.

Morale at camp is high, with all players seeming to have taken a liking to new coach Joe Prunty, and the Puerto Rico game will be a chance to see whether it translates onto the court.

“You come in the first day of camp, you have a new system and you’re trying to learn different things,” said first-time head coach Prunty. “And then you get to the first game and it’s something brand new. I’m looking for us to get comfortable as quickly as possible and to go out and compete. Like most people, any game we line up in, I’m expecting us to win.”

According to LatinBasket, Puerto Rico will be sending a second string squad, made up of some BSN (Puerto Rico’s domestic league) veterans and prospects, that are going to be under evaluation and could be called in case of injuries on the main team that is practising at the IMG Academy in Sarasota, Florida.

“(The focus will be) Obviously to get the offensive flow, get used to each other, the defensive assignments we’ve put in,” said young point guard Devon van Oostrum on Monday at camp. “And basically start off with a win.”

Dan Clark, who is nursing an ankle injury and is a question mark to play, thinks that without the likes of stars Luol Deng and Joel Freeland, they need to look to share the ball as well, as focusing on performing at the defensive end of the floor.

“Having lost players like Joel and Luol, who were big parts of our offence,” said Clark. “I think it’s a good chance for other players to take that step, although I think it should be on a team orientated basis rather than last year we did have two main focal points, so I think (the focus) it’ll need be our teamwork and especially on defence.

“I think defence will be a big thing for us, especially having lost two explosive scorers like that, it won’t be as easy to get the flow of points going, so I think defence is the big part that we’ll have to concentrate on.”

The squad is currently standing at 17, with Prunty needing to make five cuts before Eurobasket. On Monday he said they’ll be looking to make cuts sooner rather than later.

“General timeline (to trim the squad) is probably between now and at least the Puerto Rico game, we’ll be evaluating at that point, we might look at it,” he said, as the team will head to Finland, Greece, Poland and Spain after facing Puerto Rico. “We’ll go out on the road and play a few games, as we keep going along we’ll constantly evaluate it.

“But I would say that we won’t be able to go around with 17,18 players throughout the whole month we’ll obviously have to trim it down way before that.”

The game against Puerto Rico is expected to be a sell out, with just 300 tickets of 6,000 left last week. For those who are unable to make the game it will be live streamed through the BBL who have taken over the managing and running of GB events this year. Look out for the link on Hoopsfix via Twitter and Facebook tomorrow.

Image Credit: GB Basketball