The Belfast man \u2013 who is playing for Iowa Wolves in the NBA\u2019s G League \u2013 has not played for Ireland since the EuroBasket 2025 qualifying bid due to basketball commitments with Lafayette College and College of Charleston.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old signed a professional contract with Minnesota Timberwolves after playing for their Summer League team in Las Vegas last year before joining their reserve side in Iowa.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis hard work and dedication were rewarded last year with his pro deal with Minnesota Timberwolves,\u201d Ireland head coach Michael Bree said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNaturally we\u2019ve spoken a number of times since I took over in September and I\u2019m really looking forward to working with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eoin Nelson, Sean Fitzpatrick and American-born Eli Brooks are in line for their first Ireland caps after being named in the squad.<\/p>\n
Ryan Leonard is set to make his competitive debut, having last featured for Ireland in friendlies against Slovakia and Luxembourg in 2019.<\/p>\n
\u00c9anna\u2019s James Gormley returns having missed EuroBasket defeats to Luxembourg and North Macedonia in the opening window.<\/p>\n
Injury rules out Taiwo Badmus, Sean Jenkins and Max Amadasun, while John Carroll is unavailable due to personal commitments.<\/p>\n
Bree\u2019s men face Azerbaijan at the National Basketball Arena on Friday, February 27 before welcoming Luxembourg to Dublin on Monday, March 2.<\/p>\n
Ireland men\u2019s squad: Jordan Blount (Killorglin), Rapolas Buivydas (Belfast Star), CJ Fulton (Iowa Wolves), Eli Brooks (Basquet Manresa, Spain), Sean Flood (unattached), Sean Fitzpatrick (UCD Marian), Ryan Leonard (Limerick Sport Eagles), Sam Alajiki (Hapoel Galil Elion, Israel), Matt Zona (Cheshire Phoenix, UK), Neal Quinn (BCM Gravelines Dunkerque, France), Adrian O\u2019Sullivan (Ballincollig), Eoin Nelson (Neptune), James Gormley (\u00c9anna)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Belfast man \u2013 who is playing for Iowa Wolves in the NBA\u2019s G League \u2013 has not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9485,61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-289164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-barry-lennon","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}