CHRISTMAS COMES EARLY FOR FINCH
11/05/2008 GB coach Chris Finch admits he will be like a kid at Christmas when the Eurobasket Finals draw takes place in Poland on Saturday.

GB coach Chris Finch admits he will be like a kid at Christmas when the European Championship Finals draw takes place in Poland on Saturday.

The national team's superb qualifying campaign has earned them a first ever appearance alongside the major powers of the Euro game in next summer's Finals.

Despite winning a tough qualifying group with a game to spare, the Brits were controversially only given a fourth - and bottom - seed for Saturday's draw.

But not even that snub can lessen Finch's enthusiasm.

He said: "I feel like a kid before Christmas. I'm anxious to get downstairs and see what's beneath the tree!

"We're in with the real elite now and every opponent is going to be tough, especially with us only being a number four seed.

"But I don't really think about the permutations or who we could play and who we might want to avoid.

"I can't control any of that but what is good is that, after the draw, we will immediately be able to put all our preparatory plans in place for next summer.

"Great Britain are an attractive draw for teams to play these days, after the success we have had over the past couple of years, and we have a lot of offers on the table already from teams wanting to play us, depending on how Saturday's draw goes."

The one thing GB can be certain of is at least one game against a genuine world force, with world champions Spain, defending European champs Russia, Olympic semi-finalists Lithuania and perennial power Greece the four number one seeds.

But Finch insisted: "I believe if we can get the group of players we want together and prepare properly, we can compete with anyone in the world.

"We have played well against Turkey and Croatia in friendlies and in both those games we were without two of our best players, Luol Deng and Robert Archibald.

"A lot of our players are playing at the highest level of the game in the NBA or in Europe so a lot of the elite players we'll be seeing next summer are more familiar to them than some of the opponents we've played the last couple of years."

One seeds: Russia, Spain, Lithuania, Greece.
Two: Germany, Croatia, Slovenia, Turkey.
Three: Serbia, Poland, Macedonia, Latvia.
Four: GB, Israel, Bulgaria, wild card.