Placed in the 'group of death' the Standard Life GB men lost their three preliminary round games against Slovenia, Spain and Serbia, but their ability to compete against all three did not go unnoticed.

GB's participation in EuroBasket came on the back of a meteoric rise in three years; promotion from Division B to A and then securing qualification at the first ask. And because of that Finch was able to field a team at the Europeans now, as opposed to 2011, which is why although the losses still hurt the head coach is able to take some positives from Poland.

"Our goal this summer was to qualify for the next round and keep moving forward. Maybe that was over ambitious, but I don't think it was," said Finch.

"Over the last 18 months people have asked me what we could add to the programme to grow and get better and I have always said that it wouldn't be a position or an individual; we need a collective experience of playing at the highest level.

"There's nothing like experience and going through it together.

"This [EuroBasket] will have been invaluable and I've no doubt that it will pay dividends at some point down the line to have been there now, as opposed to 2011 which is when most people thought we'd make it."

Britain's standout performance came against the reigning world champions and Olympic silver medallists Spain, whom they led by four points in the final quarter but eventually lost 84-76. But while the rest of Europe sat up and took note Finch was keen to remember it was still a loss.

"We have to be very careful, while we played well and gained respect and had our chances, when no-one else was giving us a chance, it is only the outside perception that's changed. Inside still says we didn't win.

"We expected to win and that leaves us feeling disappointed. Moral victories are still losses.

"We need to come up with a better balance. We need to do some things technically better on the floor and we need to raise our level of professionalism within the team.

"It's hard to be anything but disappointed because we had chances in all the games to go through and it's kind of disturbing to think the tournament is going on and we have had to come home, it doesn't feel right.

"The steps we need to make now will be critical. We will demand more of the programme, starting with the players.

"We will put everything we have learnt into use to help in some way. I think we showed that we can be competitive and we definitely learnt that we aren't that far away."

Slovenia and Serbia both recorded wins in the qualifying round, against Lithuania and Poland respectively, while Spain were defeated by an inform Turkey.