Basketball: Great Britain fall at the last as Aussies claim final victory in overtime

Great BRITAIN suffered a 91-90 overtime defeat at the hands of Australia in their final match at the London Invitational Tournament.

British Basketball were granted their host nation places at London 2012 by international governing body, FIBA, in March and the 2012 Olympic test event was seen as a good chance to vindicate that decision.

There were 14 changes in the lead in the match before Australia, ranked No. 9 in the world, wrapped up a thrilling victory.

Luol Deng scored 26 points, nine rebounds and three assists while Devon van Oostrum also contributed nine points and five assists.

Great Britain coach Chris Finch bemoaned the team’s performance in the closing stages. He said: “All credit to Australia, they played extremely well throughout the game, but I thought our guys played really tough.

“In the third we hung in there and got to the free throw line a lot but in the end we were five or 10 minutes away from a really good tournament results-wise. It’s been part of our learning process and there are a lot of good things to take from this week. We now have a short amount of time to put it all right.”

Later reports suggested Britain’s Dan Clark had suffered a potentially serious hand injury, with X-rays due later today.