This past weekend saw Team GB compete against Turkey, Israel and Poland in the GameOn 2009 tournament at London’s O2 Arena. Promotion for the event centered heavily on Chicago Bulls star Luol Deng’s presence in the GB team. However much of the pre-event hype had died down in the wake of the news that Deng was choosing to sit out the tournament to rest his injured right leg.

Pops Mensah-Bonsu was GB’s backup NBA star until he too pulled out of the event, presumably to concentrate on contract negotiations in the US (Mensah-Bonsu was released by Toronto but today reached a verbal agreement on a one-year deal with the Houston Rockets). Deng and Mensah-Bonsu were joined on the inactive list by Andy Betts and Robert Archibald (after being injured in the opening game), leaving Team GB at a huge disadvantage before the tournament had even started.

I missed the first round of games, during which GB lost to the Polish team, featuring Orlando Magic backup center Marcin Gortat. On the second day, GB came up against a strong Turkish team led by Toronto’s Hedo Turkoglu.
The game was fairly even throughout, with solid play from Joel Freeland and Dan Clark in the low post replacing the veteran presence of the absent Archibald. Turkish coach Bogdan Tanjević was unhappy with the officiating and was assessed a technical foul for complaining in the second quarter. Tempers flared again in the third quarter as GB backup point guard Justin Robinson was involved in an altercation with a Turkish player. Both teams had to be seperated by the officials and were assessed double unsportsmanlike fouls. The brief melee on court added to the frustrations of the Turkish team and both Turkoglu and Tanjević were assessed technicals, the Turkish coach being ejected from the game.

GB lost hold of the game in the final stages as their offense began to struggle. Turkoglu made a couple of big plays for Turkey including a fadeaway jumpshot from the right elbow as the shot clock was winding down. Overall it was a decent performance from GB against a relatively strong side. In the end they just weren’t able to keep their composure on the offensive end to win the game.

The final day saw GB take on Israel in an attempt to remove themselves from the bottom of the tournament standings with a record of 0-2.

Legendary Israeli head coach Zvi Sherf had earlier conducted a coaches clinic as part of the Basketball Coaches Association’s National Coaching Conference, and his team came onto the floor knowing that a win would guarantee second place in the final standings.

Once again GB exchanged baskets with Israel as they had done against Turkey the night before, however Israel’s guards were very aggressive on the chase and GB’s outside shooters were afforded little space to manoeuvre on the perimeter and could only throw up contested shots late in the shot clock. In contrast, Israel were able to take advantage of GB’s perimeter defense and exploited this with a succession of penetrate-and-kick actions which left GB wide open for Israel’s three point specialists to rain in an outside barrage. Dan Clark started strongly in the low post but missed a couple of short hook shots late in the game that might have challenged the outcome, however Israel emerged deserving victors.

Team GB ended the tournament with a 0-3 record however strong showings by young big men Freeland and Clark will give plenty of encouragement to head coach Chris Finch, who must learn from the event and prepare his team for Eurobasket Poland 2009 in a month’s time.