GB Basketball's campaign in the women's Eurobasket tournament in 2023 will go through familiar opponents in Greece and Portugal with world rankings of 15 and 52 respectively.
✅ The stage is set for the #EuroBasketWomen 2023 Qualifiers!
— FIBA Women's EuroBasket (@EuroBasketWomen) August 20, 2021
📅 Window 1 : November 11-14, 2021
🔗 https://t.co/Kg9D2FyTdn pic.twitter.com/aMiuk6JZoV
GB played both nations and ended up defeating Portugal and narrowly losing out to Greece, a nation who are well known for their basketball. They lost that matchup by just two points, 61-59.
The team will be looking to improve on a historic 2019 tournament run in which they ended up finishing in fourth place, the highest ever in GB women's basketball history. The team will also be looking to bounce back after missing out on qualification for this summer's Eurobasket tournament in which the victors were Serbia. The qualification matches will take place over three years; 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Head Coach Chema Buceta says that he and the team are focused firmly on for November's opening game:
“We have to respect all of the teams in this draw and focus on ourselves to be competitive from the first game in order to qualify for our next goal of EuroBasket 2023."
GB Basketball Women's captain Chantelle Handy spoke on the team getting back onto the European stage and being competitive again following the disappointment of not qualifying for this years Eurobasket:
“We are excited about the draw. We know Greece and Portugal well as we’ve had them in the qualifying windows in the past. We need to focus on us and what we need to do in order to win.
“We know it will be hard as all the teams in our group are tough so it will be a fight in every game. We have to get back on track so our development over the next year and half is very important to our success.”