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We are pleased to announce that we have a new retail partner and an online shop to take the stress out of ordering Basketball Wales kit.

Cameron Seeley, Basketball Wales Performance Director said, “We are delighted to be working with Stephen Vickers and his team at Eurologo in Bridgend. We believe that they have the personnel and the experience to deliver a high quality and timely service to all our National Teams, providing them with the Givova kit they need for training and competitions”.

Eurologo Director Stephen Vickers added, “We are very excited and honoured to enter into this new partnership with Basketball Wales.  We pride ourselves on offering a professional service and look forward to providing teams with their kit and other accessories, and we welcome all queries and any specific requests from teams.  We hope that this is the start of a very long-standing relationship”.

Also, if any Basketball Wales affiliated clubs would like to set up an online club shop to help take the hassle out of ordering team kit, just email Stephen on stephen@eurologo.co.uk he will be happy to discuss all the available options and provide competitive rates to clubs on all Givova products as well supplying other brands.

The new Eurologo Basketball Wales online shop can be found at www.eurologo.co.uk/online-shop you’ll also find a link from the Basketball Wales homepage.

Ed Warner, former Chair of UK Athletics and the British Equestrian Federation, has today been named as Interim Chair of British Basketball.  Warner, who also chaired the bid and organising committee for the London 2017 World Athletics Championships and has a long career in city finance, will start in his role immediately. 

Ed Warner said:

“I am delighted to have been appointed Interim Chair of British Basketball at such a pivotal time for the sport. Basketball has genuine mass appeal and, as the recent Commonwealth Games showed, our elite teams can deliver on the world stage when given the opportunity. I look forward to working with my Board colleagues, the sport’s wide range of stakeholders and potential partners to ensure a sustainable, vibrant and inspiring future for the sport at the elite level.”

Ed Warner joins a British Basketball Board that was recently strengthened by the appointment of four new Directors; Andrew Billingham, Emir Feisal, Sadie Mason and John Zerafa.  The new appointments bring a wealth of experience from Sport, Finance, Commercial, Marketing and Communications.   

The British Basketball board comprises 10 members, including representatives of England, Scotland and Wales Basketball, and is the body recognised by FIBA to run and manage GB’s elite Basketball programmes at U16, U18, U20 and senior levels. 

For more information, please contact:

British Basketball

Knowledge Dock Business Centre, 4-6 University Way, London E16 2RD

Email: media@basketballgb.com

The British Basketball Federation (BBF) is the British National Governing Body with responsibility for British teams playing in all FIBA competitions.

The vision and strategic outcomes of the BBF are to unify all major partners in Britain to work together to build the sport from grassroots to world class GB teams by engaging people in the sport.

For more information on the British Basketball Federation please visit:

Website http://www.gbbasketball.com

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/GBBasketball

Twitter https://twitter.com/gbbasketball

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a paid, part-time Administrator to join Basketball Wales and provide administrative support to the Board of Directors in delivering services to our diverse membership and the wider Basketball community in Wales, as Basketball Wales increases its focus on grassroots development and on opportunities to grow the sport.

We require a pro-active individual with excellent communication and interpersonal skills and the successful candidate will play a pivotal role across the performance, participation and educational activities of Basketball Wales. They will have strong organisational skills, have good attention-to-detail, be able to work independently and interact with the Directors and with our members across Wales.

General Administration

• Day-to-day administrative tasks, including dealing with membership queries, maintaining the National Body’s events calendar;

• Provide transactional support to the Finance Director, including upkeep of the finance system;

• Support the Safeguarding Officer in maintaining governance policies and related controls; and

• Aid with the processing of DBS checks and compliance of members and volunteers

Education

• Provide organisational support for the delivery of coaching, officiating and other courses

Participation

• Collaborating with the Board to organise and deliver an audit of membership to help identify areas for the further services to be provided.

• Provide administrative support for the delivery of the Mini Basketball Award Scheme and for the delivery of pilot programmes for Clubs and Communities.

Performance

• Provide administrative support to the National Teams, including record-keeping, compliance with safeguarding requirements and centralising the organization of events.

The list above is not to be considered exclusive or exhaustive as there may be other duties and requirements associated with the post, which the Board may call upon the post holder to perform.

For further infomation and guidance please read the full job description for this new role.

To apply, please send your CV and a cover letter outlining why you would be a good fit for this role to enquiries@basketballwales.com

This post is supported by Sport Wales

In April, the Senior Men National Team continued with their training and development with a 3-day camp held at Cardiff Met University, home of the Cardiff Met Archers.

Head Coach James Bamfield said:

“After a fantastic Christmas camp which saw the side beat NBL Div 2 side Thames Valley Cavaliers, enthusiasm was high and with a growing belief in our philosophy, serious strides are being made on court. Everyone in the group put a lot of work in early to ensure we had a great culture of relentless development. More recently we have started to put more emphasis on the standards we need to uphold to compete at the highest level, as I discussed after the Celtic Clash held in Scotland last year, we weren’t prepared to compete, but if we can implement the standards we have been discussing we will be a tough team to play against going forward. To then get within 20 point of Bristol Flyers pre-season and then to make a 60-point against Thames Valley shows the type of progress we are making.”

Match Report

Wales 78 vs 76 Thames Valley Cavaliers

James Dawe 29pts

Lewis Tucker 12pts

Tom Nightingale 10pts

"A shaky start allowed the Cavs to jump out to a 9-2 start and some may have suspected another demolition job was in the offing. However, after a timeout to calm the jitters, Wales responded well led by captain fantastic James Dawe. The introduction of Cardiff City’s dynamic back court of Zak Mohamed and Lewis Tucker really brought the game to life and although the NT trailed there was a sense that it was game on. Dawe landed another eight points while all ten players made telling contributions for Wales and by the half time interval the score was all tied at 38.

Thames Valley looked to respond after the interval, flying high in NBL D2 and having lost out to D1 Hemel in the National Cup by just one basket they were confident in their ability. Sure, enough they upped the intensity on defence and were able to convert this into fast break opportunities as they threatened to blow the game open. Jamie Rodwell had other ideas and answered with a face line dunk and 2 more baskets to leave the gap at 8 going into the 4^th.

Cavs lead grew further to eleven but after an early timeout the high scoring duo of James Dawe (13in 4th) and Lewis Tucker (7 in 4th) showed fantastic potential as they rattled off 20 points between them. Tucker who is averaging 30 points per game in D3 landed a huge three from the corner to take a two-point advantage with 14 seconds to play. TVC’s Banks Jr. responded with a jumper to tie the game with 4 seconds to play but as Dawe advanced up court Cavs reached in and fouled with .5 to play. Dawe calmly stepped up and knocked in the clutch FTs to seal a moral boosting victory.”

Last season’s focus was on talent ID and development, but this year we have starting to implement standards to raise performance. I expected an improved performance against Thames Valley and hoped for some vindication for our approach but was absolutely delighted to get a win. The individual growth in guys like Alex Koukouravas and Ashton Allen is nothing short of phenomenal and with Lewis Tucker and James Dawe scoring freely within our system we look capable of 80 plus points. Captain James Dawe was amazing, he had a bit of a disrupted year during my first year as Head Coach due to injury; but has now settled in and his leadership made a huge difference. I’m looking forward to seeing his growth in that role.”

The year ahead...

Andrew Purnell, lead assistant said “The players have really bought in to our belief regarding player development. When the current coaching team took over, we had only a handful of guys playing National League and only Jamie Rodwell playing at the highest level. When you look at the squad now, nearly everyone is playing NBL D3 or above. It’s exciting to now start to attract in other guys playing at those levels such as Jonny Hall who plays for Ipswich in D2, a legit 7ft who will be going to Colorado on a scholarship, and Jack Preston from Northumbria in D1.”

James Bamfield added, “I am delighted with the talent in our squad. We now 25 guys who are committed to the programme and regularly attend camps. We continue to evaluate talent and to create a high-performance environment. We are all working diligently to improve everything we are doing, improving our fundamentals, how we handle pressure, how we space the floor, our decision making in pick and rolls, our use of the post and our defensive schemes.

It’s a really exciting year with a clear schedule starting to take shape. We will host a USA select team, travel to the World Club Basketball Tournament, face a couple of BBL sides and then hopefully the Celtic Clash.

After giving the players a short break at the end of a long season national league, the senior men will be holding camps in June, July and August in preparation.

Wales Senior Men National Team Long List

Point Guards

Alex Koukaravis, Surrey BUCS

Danny Walsh, Chester D3

Zak Mohammed, Cardiff City D3

Asa Waite, Cardiff Met D3

Connor Easter, Worcester Uni BUCS

Wings

James Dawe, Cardiff Met D3

Keiran Horrigan, Cardiff Met D3

Lewis Tucker, Cardiff City D3

Jonathan Thorne, Cardiff City D3

Joe Parkinson, Sefton D4

Neal Allen, Liverpool D2

Jack Preston, Northumbria D1

Sam Roberts, Free agent

Phil Warren, RCT Gladiators D4

Nico Pele Wilson, Worcester Uni BUCS

James Lloyd, USA

Connor Hetherton, Worcester Uni BUCS

Forwards

Gareth Williams, Cardiff Met D3

Eddie Kizito, Cardiff Met D3

Mathew Broderick, Free agent

Patrick Licosso, Cardiff City D3

Jonny Hall, Ipswich D2

Jamie Rodwell, Essex Leopards D2

Ashton Allen, Cardiff City

Tom Nightingale, Free agent

Jamie Cameron, Brunell BUCS

Do you play senior basketball? Do you think that this is something that you’d be interested in?

If you qualify to play for Wales either through birth, parentage or residency please contact communications@basketballwales.com

 The U23 men continued their preparations for a summer of internationals with an evaluation and training camp.

Hosted by the University of Worcester, Alex Radu of the Worcester Wolves and Basketball Wales, the camp was designed to evaluate the progress of the squad since the last camp held in London.

Thanks to the outstanding facilities on offer, the squad was able to make use of on-court facilities as well as classroom spaces. Coach Diccon Lloyd-Smeath was extremely grateful for the opportunity and said after the camp:

“After our last camp in London, we were very grateful to London Thunder for the opportunity to play games and look at some different players. This was very much the case again. I can’t thank Alex Radu and the Worcester programme enough. Thanks to the of availability and flexibility of court space and classrooms, we were able to get a lot done and learn a lot more in two days than we would normally expect.

We came into camp with a squad of 20 guys, including some younger players from the Futures Programme that we hadn’t seen before and some returning senior players. The camp gave me and the rest of the coaching team the opportunity to put players into different situations and then evaluate them in games against different levels of opponents.

As a coaching team, we also learned a huge amount about where we are as squad, what has transferred, what has embedded and most importantly what we need to work on. We’ve collected a ton of extra information, seen some new players and spent some invaluable time together, and I can’t wait for the next one!”