Great Britain’s men stayed in contention for the second stage of EuroBasket 2021 qualification with a 84-47 win against Cyprus in Manchester.

Myles Hesson led the GB scoring with 18 points, Carl Wheatle added 14 and Ovie Soko and Andrew Lawrence 11 each.

GB led almost from the start and only rarely let up against a team already consigned to bottom place in the group.

Coach Alberto Lorenzo’s team must win by at least 14 points away to Austria on Sunday to reach the next stage.

GB’s early aggression and pace gave them the first quarter as Andrew Lawrence hit nine points in a 20-6 run.

They then held Cyprus to just eight points in the second quarter to lead 45-24 at the interval with 20-year-old Wheatle underlining his ability with seven points and some excellent defensive work on his way to his first double-figure score for his country.

The second half started with Hesson scoring almost at will before taking a rest as GB set up Sunday’s decider with Group leaders Austria in Schwechat by scoring an unanswered 18 points in the final quarter.

Lorenzo was clearly happy with his team’s performance ahead of the crucial clash with Austria.

“We feel happy about the result – obviously – but especially about the way we played on defence, especially in the second quarter when we started switching and all the guys were committed with the defence,” he said.

Clark, who received an award for his 100 Great Britain caps before then game, praised the style of basketball the team played.

“We have really great athletes on our team, guys who can really get up and down the floor and we want to play fun basketball and get easy baskets,” he said. “It’s important that we keep that up [for the Austria game].”