As part of the Great Britain Basketball Women and Men’s teams preparation for the London 2012 Olympics, a number of warm up matches were arranged to enable some competitive match practice and the opportunity to fine tune their tactics..The Motorpoint arena at Sheffield, England played host to such an event, a triple header event involving a number of countries gearing up for the 2012 Games and at only £15 for an adult ticket for 8 hours entertainment a fantastic chance to further promote the sport within the UK.
The first match was an International Women’s game between France and the African Champions Angola. The game was not much of a contest with France dominating from the off and comfortably winning by 79 points to 51, disappointingly played in front of a half empty arena.
Next up was the main event, a Men’s match up between Team GB and Portugal, by this time most seats were filled although surprisingly it was still not completely a sell out. This was a chance for the crowd to see probably the best Squad that Great Britain have ever fielded boosted by the inclusion of Chicago’s Bulls star Luol Deng and ex NBA player Pops Mensah-Bonsu, together with a number of other players plying their trade with Europe’s top Basketball clubs. 
The game was one GB would have been expected to win, very different to the pre Deng days when Britain were constantly the whipping boys across Europe. However, GB got off to a slow start, their flamboyant speed game becoming error ridden, whilst the more conservative, methodical play of the Portuguese allowed them to take the early spoils going into half time break with a 2 point lead. However the 2nd half was a different story with GB giving a sparkling third quarter performance outscoring the Portuguese by 25 points to 6, with Deng finally showing what a class act he is. By the end the GB team had completed a satisfactory exercise winning comfortably by the score of 83 points to 68 and taken another step towards their first Olympic tournament game against Russia who however will be a totally different proposition.
The whole event was a great family occasion with not only the 3 matches, but plenty of entertainment during the breaks including Cheerleaders, Acrobatic Basketball displays and Giveaways. The whole of the Men’s GB team also spent 30 minutes signing autographs and having photos taken with the fans with Deng being the star attraction, he happily joined in obliging all the requests with a big smile on his face. This was a tremendous PR exercise for the British Basketball association and judging by the star struck faces of some of the fans participating, one that was extremely appreciated.
No one can deny the huge strides that Men’s British Basketball as taken in the past couple of years but the Olympics may be that a step too far and as much as I would love them to do well I don’t think they will be troubling the Medal places come the finale of the tournament. However, the “Deng” effect will hopefully allow this progression to develop further and judging by the number of Children at the event together with the interest the Olympics will bring, perhaps Britain may have more NBA stars within their squad come the next Olympics.
Interesting post - I know nothing about basketball and was unaware that Team GB has what is now considered a semi-decent side. Hopefully they can win a few matches in the Olympics!
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