GBR - Sullivan leads by example

LONDON (Olympic Test Event/EuroBasket 2011) - When thinking of Great Britain's men's national basketball team, the players that spring to mind the most are Luol Deng, Pops Mensah-Bonsu and even Ben Gordon, despite the fact that he has yet to play for his native country.

Not often is the name of team captain Drew Sullivan one of the first mentioned.

But the unassuming and quiet leader of this team has no problem with that.

Sullivan knows what is expected of him in order for Great Britain to succeed and he goes about doing just that.

"For me it's to do a little bit of everything," the 31-year-old forward said of his role. "I try to chip in where I can, where needed but I understand that my role on a team for the most part is to guard the other team's best wing player.

"I actually really enjoy doing it. I take a lot of pride in it and I feel that the coaches have faith in me that, if I'm asked to do a job for them, I'll do it to the best of my ability."

When Great Britain's national basketball programme was launched in the summer of 2006, Sullivan was one of the first players to answer the call.

He was made the team's captain and, ever since then, has led by example.

Like head coach Chris Finch and guard Nate Reinking, he has been one of Great Britain's mainstays over the years as they have gone from strength to strength.

They gained promotion in the European ranks, going from Division B to Division A in 2007, and achieved another huge milestone the following year by qualifying for EuroBasket 2009.

While Great Britain failed to win a game in Poland - in a group consisting of eventual champions Spain, finalists Serbia and fourth-place Slovenia - they did enough to prove their commitment to growing their basketball programme and were rewarded with automatic places in the Olympic Games for both their men's and women's teams.

With less than a year to go before the Olympic Basketball Tournament, Sullivan looks for his team to make the most of the time they have together.

This week's Olympic Test Event and the upcoming EuroBasket, he believes, present ideal opportunities to accummulate invaluable experience.

"We are using the Olympic Test Event and the EuroBasket as experience so that once we go to the Olympics next year we will already have measured ourselves against great teams," he said.

"It's great to play against a lot of players that have been at the Olympics time and time again."

With their place for next year's Games already secured, you could be forgiven for thinking that Great Britain will not have quite as much of an incentive as the other teams when they head to Lithuania later this month for EuroBasket.

But that would be wrong.

"The opportunity to compete in EuroBasket is motivation enough. We're playing against very good teams in our group - Spain, Lithuania, Turkey, Poland. We want to be able to go further than we did in 2009," warned Sullivan.

"As I said, we also want to have as much experience going into the Olympics as possible. So those are the two things that motivate this group."

The draw at EuroBasket hasn't been kind to Great Britain, but Sullivan takes it in his stride. 

"To be honest with you, at this stage, when you're playing against such high quality teams, you're going to be in a tough group," he reasoned.

"I think if we were in any group that didn't include the host nation (Lithuania) we would have been more comfortable with that.

"But you have to play the teams that are in front of you and at this moment in time it's Lithuania, Turkey, Spain, Poland and another team.

"So it is what it is and we will face the challenge head on."

FIBA