British national basketball team

World championships
Great Britain Great Britain

Association	BBF
FIBA member since	2005
FIBA world rankings	56
Technical sponsor	Adidas
Trainer	Nate Reinking
Participation in the finals	no
Best results	-
Olympic games
Participation in the finals	2
Best results	9th place ( 2012 )
Continental championships
championship	European Championship
Participation in the finals	2
Best results	13th place ( 2009 , 2011 )
Homepage	gbbasketball.com
(As of May 19, 2013)

The UK national basketball team represents the UK excluding Northern Ireland in men's international basketball matches. It was re-established in 2006 on the occasion of the 2012 Olympic Games in the British capital, London.

history

A British national basketball team was first formed on the occasion of the 1948 Olympic Games in London , which took 20th place out of 23 participants. From 1972 British national teams took part in the qualifications for the Olympic Games, while the separation of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland remained for other competitions. After 1992, qualification for the Olympic Games took place via European Championships, so there was no longer any reason to form a British national team.

In 2004 the British-Irish basketball association British & Irish Basketball Federation was renamed Great Britain Basketball after the departure of Ireland (including Northern Ireland) . The British Basketball Federation was founded on the occasion of the 2012 Olympic Games . Finally, a joint British national team took England's place in the European Championship qualification.

The US-American Chris Finch , who had started his professional playing and coaching career in the British Basketball League , was appointed as the first national coach after the re -establishment . The goal was to participate in the 2012 Olympic Games, for which the promotion from Division B to Division A was required. This succeeded straight away, and two years later Great Britain qualified directly on its first participation in Division A for the European Championship finals in 2009 after the NBA player Luol Deng could be won for the national team. Furthermore, efforts were made for a long time to get his teammate from the Chicago Bulls , Ben Gordon , but finally waived his participation before the 2012 Olympic Games. The Nigerian NBA player Kelenna Azubuike, who was born in London, was also under discussion for some time about being called to the national team.

After losing all three preliminary round matches at the 2009 European Championship finals, they qualified again for the 2011 European Championship finals two years later . Here you won two out of five preliminary round games. But this was not enough for the qualification for the intermediate round in the final tournament in Lithuania.

For the 2012 Olympic tournament you were automatically qualified as a host. After four defeats after injury problems of some players, they only won the final preliminary round match against China with 90:58 and were eliminated after the preliminary round, which was enough to finish ninth in the tournament. By participating in the 2012 Olympics, you were automatically qualified for the 2013 European Championship because you could not take part in the qualification. After the Olympic Games in 2012, coach Chris Finch announced his resignation, who meanwhile worked as a club coach back in his home country and was appointed to the coaching staff of the NBA club Houston Rockets in 2011 . Subsequently, the post of national coach remained vacant for a long time.

Current squad

→ Squad for the 2013 European Championship

Great Britain squad at the 2013 European Championship

player
No.	Surname	birth	size	info	Calls	society
		Guards ( PG , SG )
	Ogooluwa Adegboye	09/23/1987	182			Greece ETHA Engomis
14th	Kyle Johnson	December 31, 1988	193
5	Andrew Lawrence	06/04/1990	185
	Justin Robinson	10/17/1987	188
	Devon Van Oostrum	01/24/1993	193			Spain Laboral Kutxa
		Forwards ( SF , PF )
4th	Kieron Achara	07/03/1983	208
13	Dan Clark	09/16/1988	208			Spain CAI Zaragoza
	Myles Hesson	06/05/1990	195			Germany Casting 46ers
	Gareth Murray	09/23/1984	201			United Kingdom Glasgow Rocks
8th	Andrew Sullivan	02/12/1980	203	(C)		United Kingdom Leicester Riders
		Center ( C )
15th	Eric Boateng	November 20, 1985	208
	Alsdair Fraser	08/13/1992	201			Germany Oettinger Rockets Gotha