England's Under 16 Men's preparations for the European Championship B Division have been thrown into turmoil by the withdrawal of Bosnia & Herzegovina from the competition.

 

The Bosnians pulled of the 19-team competition on Tuesday – just two days before the tournament starts. As they were in the Group D, the only four team preliminary section, FIBA Europe were forced to move one team from Group A, and England were the unlucky side.

 

As a result, instead of playing against Finland, Georgia, Ireland and Denmark, Simon Fisher's team will face Holland, Hungary and Slovak Republic.

 

"I'm not sure what it means at the moment, because we've only just been told," said Fisher, "But clearly it's going to have an impact. It does mean we've wasted the last few weeks putting together scouting reports and game tapes.

 

"We were due to play during the first four days of the tournament, but now we play on days one, three and five. That's an improvement from a playing point of view, but there's ramifications for the parents as a lot of them had booked to go home on the Monday. They were going to see four games, and now they'll only see two, which is obviously disappointing.

 

"There's also some ramifications regarding our hotel arrangements, but England Basketball are working on that at the moment. We’ll need to do some work to find out about who we're playing, but in any tournament there's certain problems you need to overcome.

 

"We've had two overtime games against Holland, and we arranged those games because they were in the other half of the draw. We know plenty about them and it'll be a tough game. I got on well with their coach, and we'd planned to have a meal together, but I guess that'll have to wait until after the tournament now.

 

"I haven't seen Hungary or Slovakia, and I need to speak to my contacts, but it works both ways in the sense that they don't know much about us."

 

Despite the problems caused by their schedule changing, Fisher is happy with his team's preparations, and is encouraged by how England's Under 18s have played:

 

"We're inspired by the Under 18 Men, and it shows our players have the ability. I know how it feels to lose in the semi-final [against Sweden in 2007], and hopefully we'll be able to go a step further and get into Division A.

 

"We need to start well, but I'm happy with our squad and people who've seen us play think we're doing well. We've played about 25 games, 15 of which have been internationals, and we need to make sure we make it count on the floor. It's about getting people to play well together; we need to play as a team one through to 12.

 

"Having Karl [Brown] as my assistant brings a lot to the team, and the players did some good work at Steve Bucknall's camp last week."

 

Prior to attending the camp in London, England wrapped up their pre-tournament games with three days in Belgium.

 

"We lost the first by ten," said Fisher, "But we looked a bit tired after travelling. We won by four in a good game on the second day, and used the third day for a scrimmage where we both tried out different things in a game which finished 42-42. That was probably the best result for everyone."

 

England tip off against Hungary on Thursday evening before facing Slovakia on Saturday and Holland on Monday.