Lebanon for Baldwin

Former Tall Blacks coach Tab Baldwin has announced he has taken up the position as coach of Lebanon’s national team. Baldwin, 51, will gather his first squad together at the start of June in preparation for the Basketball World Championships and faces his former team in the group stage of the Championships. “It will be an emotional experience to play against New Zealand,” Baldwin told The Daily Star. “I am a citizen there and it was my home for over 20 years,” he said. “I will have to process the whole scenario in my head in the weeks leading up to the game,” said Baldwin. The 2010 World Championships will be his third in a row after leading New Zealand in 2002 and 2006, achieving a semi-finals place against the odds eight years ago, as well as coaching the Tall Blacks in the 2004 Athens Olympics, where Baldwin pulled off another shock result by beating World Champions Serbia and Montenegro. He left his position as New Zealand head coach in 2006 and has since worked around Europe and Turkey.