Basketball: 'The Bull' has glory for Scotland in his sights

Published on Tuesday 17 June 2008 10:23

"IT'S Euro B or bust," said Scotland coach Iain Maclean today as he prepared for Scotland's first home European tournament for 26 years, the Activcity Euro C Championship which was due to begin tonight at the Pleasance Sports Hall, Edinburgh University.

Maclean is determined that his rookie side with seven new caps will win in style and prove that they are ready to move up to the next level in Europe despite Scotland's fairly dismal record at the lower level, formerly known as the European Promotion Cup.

To do so they must beat Malta tomorrow, Wales on Wednesday and Andorra on Thursday in their group games, all tipping off at 7pm, then win their cross-over with the winners of the other group containing 2006 champions Azerbaijan, Moldova, San Marino and Gibraltar.

Should they negotiate that route safely they will probably face Azerbaijan in the final on Sunday.

But "The Bull", as Maclean is known from his playing days with MIM and Edinburgh (now Scottish Rocks), is taking nothing for granted "We're not underestimating anybody – we'll take a look at Malta, get down to it and get a win on the board and then it's Wales and we've a few old scores to settle there. And game three in the group against Andorra could be a tough one given their past record."

Three bronze medals in 2000, 2002 and 2004 have been the sum total of success under previous coaches and Maclean himself will be keen to avenge the humiliating fifth place he endured as a player in San Marino in 1996 when Wales inflicted the first of three defeats in successive tournaments.

Scotland's only senior men's European tournament victory came in Luxembourg in 1979 when Switzerland, Norway and the hosts all lost to coach Ken Johnston and his team and the Scots went on to the next stage. Three years later, with American coach Bill Miller at the helm, Scotland hosted another European qualifying tournament at Meadowbank and beat Ireland, Egypt (playing with special dispensation) and Iceland, but disappointingly lost to Hungary and Austria and failed to go through. The modern system is somewhat different and there is no automatic step-up to Euro B for this week's winners. In fact, Scotland could have entered Euro B direct had the funding been available. But this Scotland team has been badly let down by the system, having finished a creditable sixth in the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne only to have funding withdrawn when basketball was dropped from the 2010 (and 2014) Games.

Little wonder that a number of players decided to retire, leaving new coach Maclean with only three survivors from the 2006 side, new skipper Gareth Murray, the 6ft 6in Rocks and former Arbroath Musketeers forward, former captain Keith Bunyan, the Falkirk Fury and former Rocks shooting ace – who proved his worth in last week's warm-up game against English Universities with eight three-pointers in a 27-point haul – and Laurie Costello, the Edinburgh Kings' point guard whose recent return to form could not have been more timely.

Scotland trained on the new show court at the Pleasance yesterday and the only injury worry is over Kings' Garreth Lodge, whose shoulder problem is making "slow progress". "We had a good session and a few of the guys are looking that bit sharper," reported Maclean.

Edinburgh Kings' centre Simon Flockhart, shooting guard clubmate Kevin Anderson and East Lothian Buccs' off guard Grant Gibson are the other Capital stars in the squad with Falkirk Fury's 19-year-old Daniel Donnelly another of the new caps.

&#149 MALTA'S secret weapon arrived by train from London yesterday having flown in from Italy where he is playing pro-ball. Samuel Deguara may be only 17 years old but he is 7ft 4in tall, easily the tallest man in the tournament in the apparent absence of Aleksander Rindin of Azerbaijan, who is an inch taller.