Great Britain - Great Britain land toughest draw at Eurobasket finals in Poland

From www.telegraph.co.uk
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Great Britain's 'reward' for their historic first appearance in the Eurobasket finals in Poland next September is a place in the toughest pool with qualifying matches against Olympic silver medalists and former world champions Spain, Serbia – who are also former World champions – and the highly rated Slovenians.

Great Britain land toughest draw at Eurobasket finals in Poland: Bullish mood: Chicago Bulls' Luol Deng will need his best form for the Eurobasket finals.

The task couldn't be tougher but with the top three in each pool progressing to the final week GB are not without hope. One outstanding win against the odds – and they have already shown they can achieve that in the qualifying pool – and they stand a chance of climbing even further up the ladder.

"It's by far the toughest group, there's no doubt about that," says coach Chris Finch. "Every team will be tough that's for sure but in Europe you wouldn't expect anything less.

"Spain are the best team in the group but the other two teams are equally capable of winning the whole thing. All the teams in the group have NBA stars and we're expecting them to make it tough."

Great Britain topped their qualifying group this summer, taking some well established basketball powerhouses by surprise, but Finch believes next year's opponents will not underestimate them.

"Of course it can be beneficial to be an unknown quantity in a group, which we are because we're new, but teams aren't going to take us lightly because of the calibre of players like Luol Deng and our coaching staff.

"Now we know who we have to play we can begin to prepare. I'm still excited but now it's about taking a step back and getting that preparation right."

The quality of the opposition waiting for Great Britain will step up their efforts to get Chicago Bulls' Ben Gordon – who has made a useful start to the NBA season – fully on board next summer.