U22 European Championships
Adana, Turkey
02 - 11 July 2008
Great Britain 65 - France 35
We played the least experienced team in the tournament in France and completed a comfortable win.
1st Quarter - This was our first look at the French and we started Lee, Helen, Nat, Kyle, Tom to get us off to a good start. Helen got us going with the first basket and we were 18 points up before France scored.
Harry came into the game late into the quarter and immediately made 2 from 2 from the field and 1 from 2 from the line. We finished the quarter 21-2
Scorers – Kyle 6, Harry 5, Terry 4, Nat, Helen & Lee 2 each
2nd Quarter – We continued in the same form scoring well, starting with a 3 from Kyle and playing good defence. The 5 on the floor included Terry, Laurie, Nat, Kyle, with Harry running the point and being more than happy to shoot. Matt kept the scoring going with a 3 at the half time buzzer just after Laurie had scored a long 2.
The quarter ended 18-7
We went in at the half 39-9
Scorers – Harry 4, Laurie 2, Matt 9,Kyle 3
3rd Quarter – we started the quarter with Helen, Maddie, Laurie, Harry & Nat – a very young unit. The scoring dried up us scoring only 6 points and the French scoring 16 led by their No. 14 with 8 points. We finished the quarter 45-25
Maddie scored her first international basket off a pick and roll with Laurie, a pass in from Tom and a lay up in front of the basket under pressure – a great score
Scorers – Nat, Laurie & Maddie 2 each
4th Quarter – The French came alive with their bigger No. 14 scoring a number of baskets against our smaller unit of Terry, Harry, Maddie, Laurie & Tom. At this stage, everyone on the team had scored except Tom. He came on and scored the first and last baskets and completed the score sheet with every player scoring at least one basket.
We finished with a surge and ended the quarter 20-10
Scorers – Tom 10, Harry & Terry 4 each & Laurie 2
Although the French are inexperienced, we played our younger players for most of the game and they produced a very good performance. This will give them lots of confidence and a taste of higher level basketball.
Harry top scored with 13 points – a fantastic achievement.
We play the French again tomorrow in our final game of these championships.
In the play off games, Turkey defeated Netherlands, Spain defeated Italy, Poland defeated Germany & Sweden defeated Belgium.
Turkey play Sweden (a quick and great shooting team) in the first semi and Spain (the favourites) play Poland in the other semi.
Haj Bhania - Head Coach