GB Under-16s Beaten by Romania for First Loss

Image credit: FIBA

Great Britain Under-16s suffered their first loss at the European Championships after falling to an 92-70 defeat against Romania in Sarajevo, on Friday.

James Vear’s side are now 1-1 having beaten Ireland in their opener with three games still to play in Group A.

“Today was a tough one for us because we were not consistent enough on the defensive end and Romania did a very good job of exploiting that,” Vear commented.

“We will regroup and make sure we are prepared tomorrow for Luxembourg.”

Matt Marsh top scored with 16 points along with 10 rebounds for a double-double, while Cameron Hildreth added 15 points.

Box score.

GB made an encouraging start in an even opening period, but never led by more than three points with the game tied at 18-18 after 10 minutes.

Romania began to pull away at the start of the second as they quickly established a double-digit advantage. The outside shooting of Veron Eze and Hildreth kept GB in contention, but found themselves 43-34 down at the half after their opponents were awarded a late score that appeared to be after the buzzer.

Marsh had a couple of thunderous throwdowns in the third quarter, but the gap continued to grow as Romania racked up 26 points to build a 69-51 advantage. GB continued to fight until the end with some of the bench earning valuable minutes in the fourth as they went down to a 20-point defeat.

GB return to action tomorrow (Saturday) to face Luxembourg at 3:30pm UK time.

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