Finland coach Henrik Dettmann put it best when asked to comment on the make-up of his team's qualifying group for EuroBasket 2011.

"Wow!" Dettmann said.

"I am looking at our group.

"It seems like we went directly to the European Championships from the qualifying draw.

"And this is a tough group even in Final Round standards."

Indeed, as draws go, this was a tough one for all of the teams that ended up in Group A.

Montenegro may be newly promoted, but with an experienced coach in Partizan Belgrade boss Dusko Vujosevic and a talented squad that includes players like Panathinaikos center Nikola Pekovic and Unicaja Malaga point guard Omar Cook, no team will underestimate them.

There are also three teams with long, deep histories in European basketball: Italy, Israel and Latvia.

Then there is Finland, a team that was very impressive in their qualifying campaign for EuroBasket 2007 and also in the Additional Qualifying Round.

All signs say that this country is on the rise.

Without question, the pool the Finns find themselves in is a ‘group of death' because there simply are no easy games.

Dettmann isn't fretting, but rather extremely excited.

"It's going to be a huge challenge for anybody to qualify from this group," he said, "but of course that's what we aim for. Our goal is to win our home games and steal couple of W's (wins) on the road.

"We have been able to pamper our home crowd with some great games during the past few years. It's safe to say that pampering continues next August; great teams with world-class talent are coming to Finland."