England crash to Swiss
England's men made a losing start to their 2001 European Championship qualifying campaign, suffering a 60-73 defeat to Switzerland in Sheffield.
It looked so bright in the early stage for the hosts though as they built up a double digit lead before some sloppy play allowed the Swiss to come back to trail just 31-29 at half time.
Visiting dangerman Harold Mzarek gave his country the lead with the opening three point score after the re-start but Chris Haslam's 12th point of the game - two short of his team high - allowed England to pull ahead once more at 38-34.
The lead see sawed briefly until the central Europeans pulled ahead with a 10-0 run which left them 51-42 ahead and with both sides journeying repeatedly to the foul line in the closing stages, Laszlo Nemeth's men trailed by as much as 14 points and never looked like puling off an escape.
Mzarek ended the game with 17 points, with Andy Gardiner chipping in 13 for the English.
Nemeth now leads his side eastward to Slovakia for a tricky tie on Saturday afternoon before the journey northward to Latvia next Wednesday.
In other group ties played, Croatia demolished Slovakia 88-51 in Split while Hungary won 58-72 in Latvia.
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