GB LEARN EUROBASKET FATE
Great Britain’s men must get past Bosnia and Herzegovina and Iceland in the qualifiers for EuroBasket 2015 after the draw took place in Barcelona.
Joe Prunty’s men were put in Group A with the Bosnians as first seed and the Icelanders third but the three-team group is a mixed blessing with just two home fixtures instead of three.
Britain will begin their campaign in Iceland, on Sunday August 10. Their first home game comes three days later against Bosnia-Herzgovina on August 13. Iceland play their return game in the UK on Wednesday August 20, while the GB must travel for their final game in Bosnia-Herzgovina which takes place on Sunday August 24.
Venues have yet to be confirmed.
“It could have been worse,” said GB captain Drew Sullivan. “I feel we can beat both those teams. If Luol (Deng) and Joel (Freeland) come back and maybe we even get Byron (Mullens) or Ben (Gordon), we can walk it. It’s a good draw.”
The first-placed teams in each group, plus the six best second-placed teams, a total of 13, will qualify to the Finals in Ukraine.
In order to determine the six best second-placed teams the results of the games against the fourth-placed team, in each of the groups of four teams will be removed from the ranking process, in order to rank teams on a ‘like for like’ basis across all of the groups.
B: Montenegro, Israel, Bulgaria, Netherlands.
C: Germany, Poland, Austria, Luxembourg
D: Belgium, F.Y.R. of Macedonia, Belarus, Denmark
E: Czech Republic, Georgia, Portugal, Hungary
F: Latvia, Sweden, Slovak Republic, Romania
G: Italy, Russia, Switzerland
The teams play every other team in their group in a home-and-away format across six game days between August 10-27.
With Greece, Finland and Turkey, along with Brazil, securing World Cup wildcard spots – and direct entry to EuroBasket 2015 – 13 places in Ukraine in 2015 remain unfilled with Estonia, France, Lithuania, Spain, Croatia, Slovenia, Ukraine and Serbia also already assured of their berths.
Later World Cup draw is scheduled for 5pm at Barcelona’s Palau de la Música Catalana.
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