GB Get Come From Behind OT Win Over Belgium

A superb display from Temi Fagbenle was the highlight of a stunning comeback for Great Britain as they boosted their EuroBasket Women 2015 qualification hopes with a thrilling 74-70 win against Belgium in overtime.

The forward harvested a magnificent 26 points and 11 rebounds to help complete a priceless double against their Group B rivals, having opened their campaign with a success against the Belgians at the University of Worcester Arena.
 
While Fagbenle led the way, the Londoner was just the peak of a wholly impressive team performance which ruined their opponents’ hopes, after the players demonstrated oodles of guts by overcoming a 13 point second half deficit.
 
Great Britain had started confidently and went 10-9 ahead after a nice play from Steph Gandy and a pair of free-throws from Dominque Allen. Belgium then moved into an 18-10 lead, although successive scores from Fagbenle helped the visitors cut the gap to 20-16 heading into the second quarter.
 
Belgium moved back into an eight point lead, only for three free-throws by Rachael Vanderwal to keep Great Britain in touch. However that became a much finer thread when the home side established their first double-digit lead of the night at 33-19.
 
Eilidh Simpson came up with a timely intervention by  converting with a super three-pointer, but still behind by nine points heading to the locker rooms, Great Britain were again under pressure early in the third quarter as Belgium strengthened their superiority at 41-28.
 
Showing real spirit and resilience, Great Britain managed to hang tough as Stef Collins inspired a comeback with some brilliant work which ignited a tremendous 16-6 run to reduce the arrears and make it a one-shot game at 47-44 early in the final quarter.
 
Nevertheless, leading by five points with only 28 seconds left, it looked like Belgium would complete the job, but a Fagbenle score and free-throw then gave Vanderwal a chance to show her cool by forcing overtime with two more from the line.
 
With both Belgian forward duo Sofie Hendrickx and Laurence Van Malderen fouled out, Stewart and Fagbenle took over in the paint and that set the platform for a fabulous win.
 
A go-ahead triple from Collins with three minutes remaining put Great Britain on the front foot, before both Stewart and Fagbenle got Great Britain safely across the finishing line – much to the delight of Coach Buckle.
 
“It was a hell of a win for us because we got ourselves into a bit of a hole,” said the play-caller after his team’s third win in four games.
 
“We took some time to adjust to Belgium who were playing very well but we got back to our game plan and had some big contributions from not only the likes of Temi, but many other important cameos too. It was a very good team effort and as the game went on, we began to build more and more momentum as we did a better job at keep getting to the foul line.”
 
“We were always confident in overtime and a big part of our success was players making free-throws.”
 
There were also valuable double-figure scoring returns from Gandy, Vanderwal and Collins, although the key number on the night was getting to the foul line an eye-popping 30 times. You can obtain a full list of statistics here.
 
Buckle leads his team into battle with FYR of Macedonia on Sunday in a 2pm tip-off at the University of Worcester and isn’t willing to allow his team to falter against the only team in the group still without a win to their name.
 
He stressed, “We are heading to exactly where we want to go and we don’t want to slip off track and must bring some real focus for the game on Sunday. We will have to ensure we have an effective good game plan and produce a really disciplined effort.”
 
Great Britain will then wrap up their qualification programme at home to Lithuania on Wednesday 25 June, with the Group B leaders still unbeaten after waltzing to a 101-59 win at FYR of Macedonia.

Image Credit: Mansoor Ahmed