Team GB underdogs at O2

From Game On - O2 2009 (Sunday)

I’ve now added Basketball to the sports I’ve seen live, and not only on TV. Adding to my memories of trying to play at school, and never having much success! A sport for tall people – not the vertically challenged… A court side seat to one of the events organised as part of the warm up for 2012 meant I could witness Team GB, current effectively unranked in World – tied 75th in the world, pit themselves against Turkey, Israel and Poland – ranked 14th, 25th and 55th themselves. Given the lowly ranking, Team GB put up strong performances in both matches I watched – but did, in the end fall to the better opposition. In both the matches they put up a good fight – leading at times, before class told towards the end of the games. The game again Turkey was a perfect illustration of why it is rare for a basketball game to finish on a close score. The last few minutes of game time, which Team GB started only 6 or so points behind Turkey, became very disjointed as Team GB repeatedly fowled, to take Turkey to the free throw line for 2 one point shots with the clock stopped. The hope was ,that they’d be able to score two or three points on each of their possessions, with Turkey not always gaining both point from the free throw line – a tactic that got more and more futile as Turkey scored most of their points, and Team GB failed to score on many of their possessions… All in all, an entertaining way to spend two weekend afternoons/evenings – being their in person did bring more of sense of speed to the sport – the court is small, but the action furious – something that isn’t so clear on TV. Bring on the Olympics in 2012 – I hope tickets to events are equally easy to come by… The only down side was that the O2 was half empty, even in it’s reduced capacity format with the top tier unused, which meant despite the best efforts of the master of ceremonies there wasn’t much atmosphere.  It will be interesting to see how four low ranked European national sides compare to my next live basketball – MBA team Chicago Bulls and Utah Jazz at the O2…