International

Jan 29 2025

Draws made for FIBA Youth EuroBasket 2025

The draws for FIBA Youth EuroBasket have taken place in Freising, Germany on Tuesday morning, determining the destiny for Ireland's men's and women's teams at U16, U18 and U20 level for the competition in 2025.

A total of 249 teams - comprised of 48 different national federations - will compete across the 16 tournaments this summer, with the action set to begin with FIBA U18 Women's EuroBasket, Division B on July 4.

Serbia's Aleksandra Crvendakic - a FIBA Women's EuroBasket winner in 2021 - and retired Spanish international Victor Claver - winner of three FIBA EuroBasket titles as well as the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 - were the special guests helping out with the draw proceedings.

Here’s a closer look at what awaits Ireland at each level:

Team: U16 Women

Head Coach: Paul O'Brien

Division: ‘B’

Dates: August 20^th – 29^th

Location: Istanbul, Turkey

Opponents: Turkey, Austria, Iceland, Switzerland

2024 Finish: 10^th (‘B’ Division)

Reacting to the draw, head coach Paul O'Brien said:

"Seeing the draw and finding out where we will be going for the FIB Youth EuroBasket is always an exciting time. I am pretty happy with the group we have been drawn in as we are historically quite competitive with Austria Switzerland and Iceland. Getting the opportunity to play Turkey in Istanbul is going to be a really cool experience as well. I am confident that our squad and staff will work as hard as we can to be as prepared for the first game as possible and feel we have a group of players that can excel in this tournament."

Team: U16 Men

Head Coach: Emer Howard

Division: ‘B’

Dates: August 7^th – 16^th

Location: Skopje, North Macedonia

Opponents: North Macedonia, Slovakia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Poland, Cyprus.

2024 Finish: 17^th (‘B’ Division)

Head Coach Emer Howard is remaining positive despite a difficult draw for her side:

"There is never an easy draw, but we are excited. From an experiential point of view, playing the hosts at home (as we did at U18s last year) is awesome, and Poland (who is coming down from Division A) was on our radar for prep games. Now we have line of sight, preparation will start to fine tune with a view to being ready to face each nation with a winning mindset."

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Team: U18 Women

Head Coach: Tommy O'Mahony

Division: ‘B’

Dates: July 4th – 13^th

Location: Vilnius-Alytus, Lithuania

Opponents: Germany, Sweden, Romania, North Macedonia.

2024 Finish: 9^th (‘B’ Division)

After the success of last year, head coach Tommy O'Mahony is taking nothing for granted:

"We are well aware how good the opposition is we face, but we are very confident in our own ability and understand once we put in the work we will compete with any team we face."

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Team: U18 Men

Head Coach: Niall Berry

Division: ‘B’

Dates: July 25^th – August 3rd

Location: Pitesti, Romania

Opponents: Poland, Great Britain, Iceland, Bosnia & Herzegovina.

2024 Finish: 11^th (‘B’ Division)

Head Coach Niall Berry is excited to get down to work:

"The excitement starts to kick in when you know the group matchups. Now that we know we can roll up our sleeves and really start to focus our plans towards this summer’s competition. I think all our squads got exciting, but challenging groups, which presents a great opportunity for us all this summer."

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Team: U20 Women

Head Coach: Karl Kilbride

Division: ‘B’

Dates: August 2nd – 10^th

Location: Miskolc, Hungary.

Opponents: Ukraine, Great Britain

2024 Finish: 5^th (‘B’ Division)

Speaking after the draw, head coach Karl Kilbride led his outfit to a top 5 finish at the event a year ago, said:

"Going into the draw as a one seed gives us a great opportunity. Obviously it’s different, having only three teams in the group. But it just means there will be absolutely no room for error and we’ll need to be at our best from the very beginning in order to progress."

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