It was a successful weekend for Scotland Under 16 Men as they collected a bronze medal at the annual Copenhagen Invitational.

The medal came after beating neighbours England 96-89 in a tough bronze medal match, as the Scots use the tournament to build preparations for July’s FIBA European Championships.

The team began the weekend in style with an 80-44 win over Iceland in the opening group game. That evening they extended their winning start, going two for two on day one with a 78-52 vicotry v hosts Denmark.

It was a tough start to day two for Scotland, narrowly losing out to eventual group winners Topsportschool VBL. The men still progressed to the semi-final where they tipped off v Kenya. It was another tough game for the team, with the Kenyans winning 91-58.

England were the opponents waiting in the bronze medal match and Scotland came out on top in a high-scoring encounter, 96-89.

Head Coach Darryl Wood was very complimentary about both the tournament and competing teams:

“The tournament was once again a great experience for us, the organisation and delivery of the event was first class. With us getting great experience against a good variety of basketball nations and different styles. The ability to grow as a team and build a togetherness within a squad if something I love about the set up in Copenhagen, it pushes you outside your normal comfort zone a bit and really allows us to see how everyone responds.”

With the team taking home a medal Darryl admits there were plenty of positives, but they have still identified some weaknesses to address:

“For us as a unit I think we can take away a lot of positives particularly with how we bonded as a unit, and how hard we compete we have some true Scottish Warriors in our team. That along with our ability to stick to our style of play even during some close situation are both real positives.  We will now look to improve on some of our weakness and indeed further enhance some of our strengths in the final 7 days of practice before Albania.”

With July’s European Championships not far away, the team are looking forward to making the required improvements in camp:

“We have now faced some good basketball nations, and the tournament allowed for great progress in our development. We are aware the intensity and indeed our standard of play however needs to go up another level for us to be competitive when we fly to Albania.”