Basketball: Nemeth plans upset in wrangle over dates wrang

LASZLO NEMETH, the England coach, fell victim to a double booking yesterday which will cost him three leading players for an international tournament in Portugal next weekend.

Three international games against Portugal, Angola and Egypt in Santiago do Cacem from the 18-20 November are preparation for the three European Championship games in the week beginning 24 November.

Nemeth's preferred team for the Championship games against Switzerland, Latvia and Slovakia includes only three players from domestic clubs. But he will now lose Steve Bucknall (London Towers) Yorick Williams (Birmingham Bullets) and Ronnie Baker (Manchester Giants) because the Basketball League and English Basketball Association have been unable to agree on rearranging fixtures. Towers play on the 18th, Giants on the 19th and Bullets and Towers, again, the following night.

Nemeth will already be rueing the loss of two of his centres for the Championships, with John Amaechi playing for the Orlando Magic in the NBA and Roger Huggins injured.

Derby Storm have replaced John Tresvant with Jerrell Bowman, an American who has a British passport through marriage. They have also released Wayne Mulgrave. Tresvant was shown the door for failing to show up at training.

The Derby Storm general manager, Tony Ironmonger, said: "No one could dispute John's wholehearted approach on court, but to be frank, it was not matched off court. He missed some training sessions and had been warned about his conduct."

The Basketball League have been forced to move the National Cup semi- finals on 12 December to Sheffield Arena, because Coventry's new Skydome will not be ready.