Ireland U18 men's head coach names squad of 31 players for 2023/24

Basketball Ireland U18 men's head coach Niall Berry has named a 31-man-squad for the 2023/24 international cycle, as prepations begin for next summer's FIBA European Championship.  

Four players, Joshua Osayanrhion, Victor Okojie, Jakub Malecki and Declan Gbinigie return from the squad which competed at the showpiece event earlier this year where Ireland finished in 20th place. Former Ireland U16 captain Harry Scully was also part of the extended squad for the event.

Adam Charles, Eoin Potito, James Power and Darragh Horkan make the jump from U16 level, having been part of Dr.Michael Lynch's squad in the previous campaign. Fourteen uncapped players are included in the initial squad by coach Berry, many of whom are drawn from the Azets Basketball Ireland U17 Academy Programme. 

Louth are well represented through Dundalk Ravens (5), while Titans BC of Galway (4) and Dublin's Éanna BC (4) are the others with multiple players selected.

“I am delighted to announce this squad behalf of myself, Emer, Trevor and all the staff of the U18 programme. After two weeks of deliberation, and back and forth evaluation of pretty much every single player who made themselves available, we are delighted to announce our preliminary squad of 31 players moving forward in this year’s U18 men’s programme. 

A huge credit must be given to the U17 Academy programme and the local clubs in the development of such a talented group of young players; and we have made our decision to go with a larger squad to be able to explore some key positions in more depth before narrowing the group further. It is now up to these players to put their best foot forward in showing us their value to the team as we proceed toward international competition in the coming months.

We are all very excited to get this group together and with more players being evaluated internationally, our aim is to put together the best possible squad to represent our country in the FIBA European Championship. 

There is always difficult decisions to make and we hope that players who didn’t make this cut will use it as a motivation to get in the gym and come back for future programs as so many top Irish International players have done in the past”.