EuroBasket 2025: Great Britain earn shock win over Montenegro to end 12-year wait

Great Britain ended their 12-year wait for a EuroBasket victory with a shock 89-83 win over Montenegro in Finland.

In their final Group B match, Myles Hesson and Akwasi Yeboah led scoring for Britain with 25 and 23 points respectively.

GB sit 48th in Fiba’s world rankings, 32 places below Montenegro.

However, both teams will exit EuroBasket at the group stage because of fourth-placed Sweden’s superior point difference, with the top four from each group advancing to the last 16.

In Britain’s most recent EuroBasket appearances, in 2022 and 2017, they lost all five group matches each time, with their last EuroBasket win having come against Germany in 2013.

The British squad is one of six from the 24 EuroBasket nations – and the only one in their group – not to contain at least one active NBA player.

Instead, Britain’s team is made up of players who play domestically across the Super League, as well as in Hungary, Turkey, Italy and Greece.

Montenegro were captained by Chicago Bulls centre Nikola Vucevic, who scored 31 points, as well as registering 11 rebounds and seven assists.

Vucevic, 34, called time on his 14-year international career following the match.