For Evbuomwan and Williams, 24, this double-header on Thursday in Switzerland and then at home to Slovakia in Newcastle on Sunday is set to mark their GB debuts at senior level.

But how the duo have been able to sign up for the latest fixtures is all about timing.

Four of GB’s six first-round qualifying matches for the 2027 Fiba World Cup were in November 2025 and March 2026, which clashed with the NBA season.

But with this window opening in between NBA seasons, as well as those of its European counterparts, the stars aligned for Steutel and his team.

“In the season, guys in the NBA [and] the EuroLeague, we struggle to get. There’s very little ability to be able to do that,” added Steutel.

“We’re right before the start of the season and our general manager has done an incredible job communicating with the Boston Celtics. Tosan is closer to home now with Barcelona.

“They’ve both been really supportive and want those guys to play, so [we’re] really excited.”

GB’s coaching staff have long craved the opportunity to be able to cash in by adding recent NBA players to their squad.

Dan Clark, who featured at the 2012 Olympics alongside two-time NBA All-Star Luol Deng, is now GB’s general manager and has stayed in contact with Newcastle-born Evbuomwan and Williams, awaiting the opportunity to be able to call on the duo.

“It’s not just a ‘this window’ thing, it has taken years,” explains Steutel.

“Tosan is someone who I’ve known for a long time and I’ve followed his journey. He’s someone who has communicated really well with us and Amari likewise. Dan Clark has been communicating with Amari for years.

“We’re able to get the timing right now and get them in a GB jersey. It’s great for the team, but I think it’s great for British basketball on the whole.”

Around a week before she left the spinal unit, Cresswell attended the Spinal Games at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, which is for patients with spinal injuries who are either still in hospital or within a year post-accident, and is an opportunity to try different sports over four days.

You name it, she tried it.

“I got six out of six bull’s eyes and won the archery out of 110 people,” she says.

“It was a great stepping stone to coming home. And I think I kind of held on to that when I came home initially because the first while was really tough at home.”

She left hospital on 8 October and by December had started wheelchair racing, going on to race 10Ks and a half-marathon, also doing wheelchair tennis and basketball.

The trouble was, she didn’t love them.

“I was worried I would never find a sport that I wanted to put my whole energy into,” she says. “I think I knew that horses were my hobby that got to turn into my sport and my career and lifestyle so I didn’t know if that would be possible to find something like that.”

Enter para-canoe.

Cresswell had got chatting to Olympic canoe athlete Deborah Kerr at an event run by the Women’s Sport Trust charity who had told her to “have a go”.

So, on 23 December last year, she did. Winter was “not the time to start a water sport” and she was “not a natural”.

“My coach was too scared to let me off the bank in case I capsized,” she laughs. “And that probably stayed, I don’t think I left the bank for about a month.”

A one-off taster session turned into twice a week and then eventually five times a week on the water. Four-hour training sessions, plus gym work three days a week.

One of the biggest challenges has been staying upright.

“I don’t have any feedback of any part of my body if I am losing balance,” she explains. “So I’m strapped into a seat because I’ve got no core function, but I can’t actually feel that seat. So I basically feel like I’m floating.

“So my only thing I’ve got to know if I’ve lost balance is my head and my eyes. So that took a while to start to hone in and they always say, deaf people hear better than anybody else, don’t they? And I think it’s a bit the same.

“It’s like, I’ve now tuned into how to balance myself without the use of the rest of my body. But I’d say the balance aspect is a big part of it alongside the technical, constant skill-based stuff that needs to be improved.”

It is the technical aspect that she thinks has similarities to equestrian and which is why she thinks she enjoys it so much.

Her progress has been rapid, by anyone’s standards. Not least her own.

“World Championships was definitely not the plan. It was a quiet goal after a while that if I could get the time, I might be able to go,” says Cresswell, who alongside training is also doing media work.

“The time I needed to achieve was, I think, one minute 26 seconds. And anyway, I’m now down to one minute 18. So I’ve kind of over-achieved on that one, which has just been through repetition, practise, finding new ways to do things.”

She has been selected to represent Great Britain at this month’s Canoe Sprint and Para-Canoe World Championships in Poznan, Poland.

Having only ever raced once before in the UK her aims are modest.

“Honestly, stay up and get through the start and finish line,” she says, explaining that she capsized before the start of a race she was due to do in April.

It is more about getting an international classification – which involves a series of medical tests to assess an athlete’s impairment and demonstrating how much of your body you can use when paddling – so that she can be eligible to earn points at events that can lead to qualification for the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles.

Could she have pictured this when she was in hospital?

“I certainly wouldn’t have imagined I was going to do para-canoe – I didn’t even know [that] was a sport when I was in hospital,” says Cresswell, who will compete in the VL1 (a canoe with a support float) and KL1 (kayak).

“But to be honest, I think what actually is more kind of crazy in my head is I couldn’t even imagine January me doing this.”

On 29 August 29 one of the feistiest upstarts in modern boxing will celebrate a fifth anniversary.

On the same date in 2021, Most Valuable Promotions’ headline bout for its inaugural show in Cleveland, Ohio, featured co-founder and online influencer Jake Paul taking on MMA fighter Tyron Woodley in the boxing ring.

MVP’s second event, just under four months later in Tampa, Florida, was a Paul-Woodley rematch.

For a long time, MVP’s most notable event featured Paul fighting Mike Tyson.

It came at a time when Tyson was so far over the hill that the hill could not be seen in the rearview mirror.

MVP’s reputation developed as it put together cards with names and output that were anathema to boxing purists.

The five-year anniversary card, however, shows a side of MVP which has emerged alongside what some would consider its gaudiness.

And perhaps what takes place this weekend offers a better indication of the promotion’s future than the fights that have gone before.

The main card features five women’s bouts, headlined by Mikaela Mayer taking on Chantelle Cameron to unify the WBA, WBC and WBO light-middleweight belts.

The primary support showcases Caroline Dubois defending her WBC and WBO lightweight titles against Amelia Moore.

MVP, for years dismissed by critics as a snot-nosed upstart of a promotion, is now a major player and the primary UK promoter of women’s boxing.

“Respect is the biggest change. I’ve seen and felt it,” Dubois told BBC Sport.

“I remember if you said you’re a female boxer, people would look at you like ‘ah’ – but now people are like ‘OK, let’s see you fight’ – it’s not a joke, a gimmick, a side caricature. It’s part of the real deal.”