Positive #EuroBasketWomen2019 Qualifiers draw for GB

Chema Buceta and his Great Britain players can look forward to the FIBA EuroBasket Women 2019 Qualifiers with positivity after an encouraging draw today.

Pitched into Group D, Great Britain have been paired with Greece, Israel and Portugal for the Qualifying windows that will start in November this year and also be played in February 2018 and November 2018.

With a place at the coveted Final Round in Latvia and Serbia (dual hosts) at stake in 2019, Great Britain were handed as favorable a draw as they could have possibly expected.

While it was always going to be tough being in the third of four seed pots, the Group holds no fears.

Greece recently made a historic run to the Semi-Finals of the 2017 edition as they took a best-ever 4th place finish in Prague to qualify for next year’s FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup. They did so off the back of some stellar displays from the evergreen veteran duo of Styliani Kaltsidou and Evanthia Maltsi – with the latter being named to the All-Star Five.

Israel will be challenging as they only just lost out in the race to make EuroBasket Women 2017, which had been reduced from 20 to 16 teams. They have huge scoring powers with the likes of Shay Doron and also the naturalized Alysha Clark, who posted a near double-double across the 2017 Qualifying games.

Meanwhile Portugal have never quite punched their weight at senior level, although the note of caution is that they now have some fantastic young players coming through towards the senior ranks and that makes them a dangerous proposition. They have an array of exciting young players such as Maria Kostourkova, Beatriz Jordao and Ana Ramos.

However, Great Britain can move forward knowing that if they get all of their players onto the court and not least the likes of EuroLeague Women star Johannah Leedham, as well as doing the work required to secure some NCAA representation they have a good chance. There are also likely to be a number of WBBL players involved – both past and present.

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