Mark Scannell: Irish basketballers courting Europe once again
t’s a long time ago now, but Mark Scannell can still remember walking through the airport in America with Tom Wilkinson, both of their gear bags stuffed with booty: US college t-shirts.
That was 30 years ago, and the two lads were coming back from international basketball duty with Ireland. Those BU and St. John’s tops were required wearing on the courts of Cork.
“This was before people wore tracksuits or runners in town,” laughs Scannell.
“You brought them back for the lads because there was no other way of getting them. Basketball was a distant thing. You had books, the odd video. Now it’s at your fingertips all the time. Literally. You could watch the Cavs play the Warriors in the NBA finals on your phone.”
Scannell is still addicted to the game of his youth. Tomorrow he flies out as head coach to the FIBA European Championship For Small Countries with the Ireland women’s basketball team, the first senior international women’s side to take to the court in seven years.
“The big thing is that we’ve lost a generation of international players. When I was coaching the team in 2009 we were very close to getting to the highest level. Orla O’Reilly, Jessica (Scannell), Claire Rockall, Sarah Woods — they were all young, but we also had the likes of Susan Moran, Michelle Fahy, Niamh O’Dwyer, Michelle Aspell. Since then they’ve retired or moved on, so the big issue now is to see what the gap is between them as good players on the national scene and the international scene.
“Being honest, the teams we’re playing are teams we should be able to beat. Without being derogatory, I wouldn’t have taken challenge games against these teams six or seven years ago, because we were at a higher standard. Now we want to gauge whether we can get to the next level — this is almost like a stepping stone. There’s pressure on us to win it, and we want to make sure we’re ready for that level.”
Scannell reaches for comparisons with another sport to show the similarities with basketball. And the differences.
“It’s a big challenge — you see it in soccer, where places like Moldova or Iceland can have a couple of good players who can hurt you. In basketball, a couple of good players can really hurt you.
“All these ‘small’ countries can come up with two good players and hurt you. I know from talking to Colin O’Reilly about scouting the men’s teams that Malta, for instance, would have two players who are among the best in Europe, so their team’s very good.
“It’s the same for us. All our opponents will have a couple of very good players. We’d like to think we have four or five very good players, at least, but when you get out there it’s gauging that against other countries which are moving on.
“I compare it to soccer because you can see that the day of the minnow is gone. You never see countries being beaten 8-0 anymore in soccer, really — even small countries lose 1-0 or 2-0. It’s similar in basketball.
“We don’t know what’s out there, but what’s good for us is that we have a really good backroom team. That’s hugely important because people say, ‘you’re going to a tournament, big games’ — but the games are the easy part of the equation, there’s a lot of work around that.
“For instance, the last time I was coach I had Mark Ingle with me, and at the end of the first quarter of a game he’d tell me what the other team were playing on offence and defence.
“Ideally, you’d try to get to see them the day before but often you have to scout as you’re going along. I’m sure Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane would have had a lot of video of their opponents ahead of the European Championships, but we have none. You’re scouting as you’re playing.
“But as a coach I’m looking forward to that. With the national league you’re used to the teams and their systems, but in this context you’re learning all the time — ‘this girl’s a very good shooter, how are we going to cope with that, who’ll go on her, how will they deal with us?’
“That’s what challenges you as a coach. And keeps you current.”
he specific nature of a tournament sets everybody on a learning curve, though. “That’s something we spoke about as a management team, and that’s the first step, actually, getting the management team in place to handle a tournament. We have Grace O’Sullivan who knows the girls, she’s a coach, a good organiser; Paul (Kelleher) is young and enthusiastic, and Francis (O’Sullivan) is experienced like me.
“Paul, for instance, has had underage teams away for a few years. He’s been to Europe and he touched on that, on planning our days.”
There’s more to that than meets the eye. Scannell points out the team’s first training slot comes at 5pm on Monday: “So there’s a bit of hanging around involved that day. The girls are good for stretching and foam-rolling but you have a lot of time on your hands, and the importance of rest and keeping them hydrated is important then. That’s always important, obviously, but the forecast in Gibraltar for Tuesday, our first game, is for 30 degrees. We don’t know if the gym we’ll be in is air-conditioned, so for a couple of sessions on warm days in the Mardyke gym we locked the doors to try to replicate the conditions.
“There are always other little things. How long does it take to get from the hotel to the gym where we’re playing, for instance? The hotel staff say it’s a 15-minute walk, so five minutes or so by bus. On some days it might be a good idea to stroll to the gym after breakfast — a breath of fresh air, stretch the legs. But if it’s 30 degrees that’s not such a good idea.
“Managing those things are part of the challenge. The basketball is nearly the easy part.”
Attention to detail is a cliched compliment for managers in all sports, but Scannell can give concrete examples of what that means.
“Getting the gear sorted is one thing, because there hasn’t been an Ireland team in seven years, so that means Ireland tops have to be made. Then, the girls would always carry their basketball boots and playing gear onto the flight, for instance, because if there’s a mix-up with baggage and the boots you’re used to are lost...
“You have to double-check the most basic items. The other day I checked if the basketballs would be there when we get there. Usually, at European competitions they’re there when you land, and I’m told they are, but you have to tick that box. I remember at a tournament once the basketballs we got when we landed were totally different to what we used in the actual games.
“I’ll go further. As the coach, you want to see the gym itself to work out where you’ll stand, what bench you’d like to use. As players, the girls will want to see the court, the baskets — is the backboard fibreglass or solid wood? Is there a backdrop? How will that affect my shooting? It’s not unusual for a hurling team, say, to get a walkaround in Croke Park ahead of an All-Ireland final. Same idea.”
The players are already in the unknown, he adds. This is normally the off-season for basketball players after a tough campaign, when they’re resting or working on a few things, but now they’re facing international competition in July and August.
“We have good leaders on the team, they’ll be good in terms of the games, but there are other things to manage apart from the hanging around; there are some girls who are shy and don’t know their teammates. You have to prepare for that. Even the Irish soccer team, no matter what their resources, have to deal with that challenge. No matter how good I think they are, or how they think they are, it’ll all come down to what happens when they come out and play. You’ve a lot of good players in the squad who are used to being the main players, the stars, of their clubs, and to playing a lot of minutes.
“Now you can only play five at a time, so there’s a situation where you’ll have not only players who are on the bench, but players on the bench who’ll expect to play and who’ll expect to start. They’re used to 25 minutes and 20 points with their clubs.
“We’ve spoken to them about this. Last week I would have pointed out that in a game there are only about 70 shots available. If you divide that by 10 or12 you end up with only six shots per person. We have girls who take 16 or 17 shots per game, so the question we need them to ask themselves is how many shots are they going to make? That’s another dynamic. We have girls whose role will be to come off the bench and be a back-up player, girls who are used to being the central player on their club team.”
The tournament is vital given the generation of players who’ve lost out on that international element to their careers. “A lot of the team are in their mid-20s, so they wouldn’t have had international experience since playing U16 or U18 for Ireland.
“That’s affected the sport, without a doubt, particularly when it comes to the attraction of other sports. Ladies football is hugely well-organised now all over the country, Cork in particular, while women’s rugby has also come on in leaps and bounds — and it has that international outlet which makes it even more attractive to players.
“I’ve noticed that the better athletes are going to those sports because they have a higher profile. Your 16-year-old girl who’s good at camogie or rugby or football, as well as basketball, is opting out of basketball, but I’d be hopeful tournaments like this one will raise the profile of basketball and help market us again — ‘I’m a good athlete and I’ve played U16 for Ireland, and now I can play senior for Ireland’.”
hat comes with challenges, though. The team is run as a self- funding programme, and at the start of the year they had a budget of €10,000 to reach. As a point of comparison, the Dutch women’s basketball federation has a €4m budget. “Without raising that, we couldn’t go. We divided it between the 16 or 17 members of the group. The girls had to come up with €800 or so. The clubs and the basketball community pledged to help, but the onus was on us.”
They knuckled down, selling tickets, writing to clubs for donations, raffles; Ireland and the Women’s Superleague chipped in; and the players ran basketball camps. Partnerships with the Mardyke Arena in Cork helped, too.
“People got behind us, the clubs in Dublin, Cork, Waterford and everywhere else got behind us. In challenge games, the referees didn’t take payments. That all helped.
“It’d be a great sponsorship opportunity for a corporation, I think, and that’d help all around. JP Montgomery of Basketball Ireland works very hard on that side of things, and I know companies are inundated, but I think it’d work well for the right company.
“The gas thing is basketball was probably the first that came up with those partnerships back in the days of Burgerland and Britvic. Rugby and GAA got going then, so you had a situation where Dawn Milk were sponsoring basketball, but they’re part of Kerry Group, and Kerry Group sponsor the Kerry footballers now. A lot of the sponsorship has become quite localised.”
Scannell sees trace elements of basketball’s golden 80’s era in the modern sports experience elsewhere also.
“If you head out to Turner’s Cross for a big game on a Friday evening, it’s a full experience, a real event. We had that in basketball then in the Parochial Hall or the Neptune Stadium. It was just a place that you had to be, it was cool to be there for a big game.
“I notice now a generation coming through who are the sons and daughters of people who were playing or attending the games then. There’s a huge basketball player population now, one that’s probably bigger than it was back in the 80’s.
“I go out to Ballincollig to kick the ball around with my young fella a lot of evenings, and you can see a lot of people shooting hoops who are obviously eastern European — not surprisingly, given the game is so big in places like Croatia and Lithuania.
“The other evening I was out there, though, and this group came in, maybe Polish, and they had hurleys and a sliotar, a basketball and a football. Covering all the bases!”
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