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Ireland bring in Stateside help to boost Euro chances The Irish senior men's team get their European Championship campaign underway this Saturday when they take on Switzerland in Geneva, in the first of three upcoming European ties.   Success has been a long time coming for Ireland at European level.  Over the past few years the men have come agonisingly close to making the step up to the lucrative challenge round, but have always fallen at the last hurdle.  Basketball chief executive Debbie Massey believes that this time round things will be different.   “Achieving success in European has always been part of our developmental strategy,” she says “What’s different this year is that we believe we now have the structures in place to achieve it.” Massey is referring to the appointment of former NCAA head coach Bill Dooley as Irish Basketball’s first ever-professional coach.  Dooley was appointed last August and tasked with the Senior Men’s job, as well as that of director of coaching. Ireland has been one of the few countries in Europe without full time National team coaches, and the appointment of Dooley is seen as the first step towards European success. Irish basketball could stand to net substantial financial and sponsorship opportunities, should the men qualify for the challenge round.  The potential benefits are similar to that of a Champions League place to a Premiership team.  Stateside influence increase FIBA also changed their Nationality rule, abolishing the previous waiting period of seven years.  Now anyone with Irish citizenship can play for the National team immediately as long as they have dual nationality from birth. With over seventy Irish American’s playing professionally in European under Irish passports, Ireland is probably one of the main benefactors of the change, which opens up such a large pool of Irish American players for selection for the first time. The inclusion of Irish American players in the Senior Men’s squad is not a new occurrence in the Senior Men – and was first introduced by Enda Byrt over a decade ago.  Players such as John O’Connell, Ken Lacey and Dan Callahan have been involved with the squad for the past few European Campaigns. However, the Nationality change does open up a larger pool of Irish American’s for selection by Dooley and several new faces have further diluted the native born contingent from both the Republic and Northern Ireland.  “At this point I don't know what the exact makeup of the team will be nor is that my concern.” Dooley says  “My concern is to give Ireland it's best chance of reaching the semifinal round of the European Championship – to do so I have to pick the best players available” New Players Dooley has been using his extensive contacts within the NCAA and the major European leagues to locate any potential new players for the team. Irish fans will recognise debutante Tim Kennedy who made a huge impact on the national league when he played briefly with Star of the Sea two seasons ago.    Bundesliga star Mike Mitchell, who averages an impressive 33ppg, would have been an invaluable addition, but has had to pull out due to an injury.  Other players making their debuts are brothers Jon and Jay Larranaga, point-guard Bill Donlon and power forward Jim Moran.   With Gareth Maguire out through injury, Adrian Fulton becomes  the most experienced International on the panel, while Irish Player of the Year, Damien Sealy, makes a welcome return to the team. Injury Blows Dooley has spent much of the winter planning various player combinations fof the Europeans, but his plans have been dealt severe blows by a number of key withdrawals due to injury.  Irish American stalwarts Ken Lacey and John O’Connell through injury, as well as Irish star Gareth Maguire all were forced to withdraw two weeks ago, while just this week Ken Kavanagh and Mike Mitchell picked up injuries which will keep them out until August. “Not having Ken Lacey available to us, due to injury, does not help our cause.” admits Dooley  “However, hopefully we will still have enough firepower to compete favorably with each of our opponents. We will enter the games with a healthy respect for each opponent as each is just coming down from the semifinal round.   Changes to the Tournament Structure FIBA abandoned the standard tournament format for the qualifying round this year.  Instead Ireland are grouped with Switzerland, Finland and Iceland, with each team playing each other twice, on a home and away basis.  Two teams will go through to the semi-final round; two get dumped back to next year’s pre-qualification round for the 2005 tournament.

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