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Old 09-11-2009, 06:38 AM   #21
Craig Costello
Minors (Triple A)
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 295
So, 3 games and 3 losses and a plane trip home for GB.

We gave Spain a scare when we hit our stride to take a 73-69 lead (having trailed 60-47 at one stage), but we ran out of gas and ended up losing 84-76. The other two games were never really in doubt as Slovenia and Serbia gave us a bit of a basketball lesson, 72-59 and 77-59 respectively.

I have no doubt that this experience will have made our young players better. The guards especially (Jarrett Hart, Mike Lenzly, Flinder Boyd) seemed to much more confident and decisive in the Serbia game than they were in the Slovenia one. Our best player over the three games was probably Nate Reinking (a 35-year old American) who averaged 12.0 PPG and shot 6/13 from 3-point range.

Pops Mensah-Bonsu was a liability at times and tended to do two bad things for every good thing, but he did add some energy at key times in the Spain game.

Overall the atmosphere and organisation in Warsaw was fantastic. The Slovenians provided about 90% of the crowds and made the requisite amount of noise - especially when they scored off an intentionally missed free throw with 1.5 seconds left to send their game against Spain into OT.
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