Heartbreak for GB against Turkey
14 October 2009by Stephanie Gagne
The listing was posted by WheelPower - British Wheelchair Sport - News
Great Britain men’s wheelchair basketball team go down in epic struggle in semi finals of the European Championships .
Great Britain were defeated by host nation Turkey in the semi final of the European Championships, in a game played before a capacity audience, who, along with the brass band created a noise that had to be witnessed to be believed.
Turkey produced a wonderful shooting display through Ozgur Gurbulak whose 40 points at 82 % led Turkey to a 75 – 69 win.
The game started at a very high standard with the scores tied at 10 points each after 5 minutes. Great Britain through Jon Pollock’s scoring took a 1 point lead, 23-22 at the quarter time break. Gurbulak at 14 points in the first quarter on 7/8 shooting and in an amazing statistic Great Britain had shot the ball at 89% in the first quarter with Turkey at 69%.
In the second quarter, both teams continued their accurate assault on the basket with Great Britain nudging ahead 33 – 28 with 4 minutes remaining. An offensive rebound put back by Turkey on the siren at half time saw Great Britain lead by just 2 points.
In the third quarter the Great Britain team took some early outside shots which were unsuccessful as Turkey continued to score freely. Despite a third quarter time out, Turkey went on an 11 - 0 run before Great Britain scored the last basket prior to three quarter time to trail 50 – 56.
In the last quarter Great Britain made several runs at Turkey narrowing the gap to 4 points on several occasions. However, the Turks made several shots on the buzzer, including two 3’s from Ali Asker Turan to run out the game 75 – 69.
There is no doubt that on the night Turkey were the better team as their three principle scorers combined to score 68 point at 73%.
Great Britain Head Coach, Murray Treseder said, “The team played well and showed much persistence in the face of an excellent Turkish performance. It is clearly apparent that the parochial home crowd boosted Turkey’s performance and even though Great Britain played well the better team won on the night."
Great Britains scorers:
Jon Pollock with 18 points and 8 assists
Simon Munn 17 points and 10 rebounds
Abdi Jama 12 points
Terry Bywater 12 points and 6 rebounds
In what was one of the finest performances witnessed in the European Championships, Gurbulak had 40 points and 10 rebounds, Turan 17 points and 9 rebounds and Gumus had 13 points and 11 rebounds.
Great Britain now play Poland tomorrow afternoon for the bronze medal whilst Turkey take on Italy in the Gold medal game.