Quartet with second chance to get Great Britain back to U20 Division A

LOUGHBOROUGH (FIBA U20 European Championship 2017, Division B) - A quartet of players are back in the mix for a second chance to get Great Britain back to Division A as the country released a 21-player preliminary roster for FIBA U20 European Championship 2017, Division B.

Andre Arissol, Kyle Carey, Sam Idowu and Josh Steel were included in the pool of players for the championship from 14-23 July in Oradea, Romania. That quartet was on the Great Britain team that finished seventh at last summer’s U20 Division B - losing to Croatia in the Quarter-Finals and missing an opportunity to get back to the top flight.

"We're definitely excited about the group of players that we have selected and we look forward to going to camp at the end of June," said Great Britain coach Andreas Kapoulas, whose team will play Azerbaijan, Netherlands, Russia and Slovak Republic in Group B. "It's a short preparation, leading to the FIBA U20 European Championship 2017, Division B so we need to maximise the time with our team and certainly having players returning from last summer will help this process."

Carey was the team's third leading scorer with 8 points per game while Steel averaged 6.9 points, 4.2 rebounds and 1.5 assists. Idowu was more of a role player and Arissol only played in five of the eight games last summer.

Steel will be take extra motivation after he also was unable to keep England (Great Britain) in the top flight at the FIBA U18 European Championship 2014 as the team lost in the crucial Classification Game for 13th Place and were relegated.

Great Britain were dropped at U20 level to Division B in 2015 as they finished 15th out of 20 teams. Due to a reform in the competition system between 2015 and 2016 with the field dropping from 20 teams to 16 for 2016, the bottom seven finishers were relegated to Division B - which included Great Britain.

"We have a lot of hard work ahead of us and we certainly feel that we have the ingredients to have a successful summer campaign. It's important to focus on the process and make sure, together, we bond as a unit and get better," said Kapoulas, who coached the U20 team last summer.

The U20 preliminary squad also includes Henri Langton and Alex Roberts, who got into a few BBL top flight games with domestic league champions Leicester Riders. Langton, who played the last two seasons for England at the FIBA U18 European Championship Division B, also played for Charnwood College Riders, who reached the final of the Elite Academy Basketball League (EABL).

Charnwood lost in the EABL final to Barking Abbey Academy which included U20 invitees Amin Adamu, RJ Eytle-Rock and Obi Agu. Adamu led the EABL in scoring for the season and had 14 points in the final.

FIBA