WORCESTER Wolves’ Alex Radu has been appointed the assistant coach of the Wales senior men’s squad ahead of an international competition.

The University of Worcester lecturer joins the team as they prepare for this month’s European Championship of Small Countries in Moldova.

Radu, the assistant coach at BBL side Wolves, is hoping to involve students from the university past and present.

He said: “We are trying to maximise the time we have available as a team and have already had a few two-day camps and several friendly games too.

“It is pleasing to see the progress we are making when playing and training together as a team after each camp.”

The senior lecturer in sports coaching basketball has experience of coaching at European level after two years as assistant coach of Romania senior women’s national team and participation at Eurobasket 2015.

The Welsh team, led by Latvian head coach Kristaps Petrovs, will play their first game of the championships in Chisinau, Moldova, against Andorra on Monday.

As part of Group B, they also tackle Armenia and the host nation.

Teams, which also include Ireland, need to finish in the top two places to give them the chance to compete in the semi-finals.

Radu hopes to see current and previous Worcester students among the 12 players who will be eventually selected to make the trip to Moldova.

“It is great to work with players like Sam Roberts, Ben Potts and Damian Cope, who all are, or were, part of the university basketball programme,” he said.

“We have some pretty tough opponents in our group considering Andorra are current champions and Moldova have a Russian influence in their style and approach to games.

“Our attention as coaching staff is to create a competitive team who play a European, modern style, which will create problems for whoever we play against.”