European Prospects

The 23rd edition of the Mondial Juniors de Basket will be played from the 10th to the 14th of June in Northern France. It is one of the last events before the NBA Draft and this year’s edition can be considered as one of the strongest preparation tournament for the Under 19 World Championship to be played in New Zealand in the beginning of July.

The organization team around Jean-Pierre Cieselski has put the focus this year on overseas teams as 4 out of the 6 participants are not from Europe. Only Lithuania and France will represent the old continent while there will be Puerto Rico, Canada and USA from the Americas and Australia to represent the rest of the World. We take a look at the preliminary rosters today in order to see what can be expected this year.

The hosts from France come to Douai with a pretty similar team to last year built around 2008 MVP Andrew Albicy and Alexis Tanghe. Coach Richard Billant brought in some talent from abroad too as three players are currently playing outside of France. Mohamed Koita who was with the Adidas Nations Africa team in Douai last year will try to get a spot in the French U19 Natioanl team this year as he currently prepares for going the NCAA way through the Stone Ridge Prep School in the United States.

Lithuania will of course feature their twin towers in Donatas Motiejunas and Tautvydas Slezas who should be the main inside players of the tournament. It looks like the squad features also a couple of interesting 92 born players that joined the U19 team instead of the U18’s preparing for the European championship.

Australia come to Douai with a nearly identical team to Albert-Schweitzer Tournament 2008 in Mannheim. The team is probably the most used to play together as they are all coming from the AIS background. The back court around Jorden Page and Matthew Dellavedova will be the attraction of the team as both of them will also head together to St.Mary’s next season in order to take over the guard positions from Patty Mills.

What counts for Australia is also true for Canada, similar squad to Mannheim 2008. Future Gonzaga forward Mangisto Arop will be the leader of a team that created some buzz one year ago and it will be interesting to see how they have developed since then. The surprise may come from Puerto Rico that features also a highly NCAA-like team around A10 Freshman of the Year Jio Fontan and Rutgers Freshman Mike Rosario.

The players from the United States will however not be the U19 National Team selection to play in New Zealand but the 2K Sports 2009 All-American Team. You can check the link above to see the full roster.

Europeanprospects.com will be in Douai on the 2 final days for coverage from Northern France. You can also follow the tournament through the official website. This year again, you can also order official Video tapes of all the games which will be produced by Images B-Ball Video Services. They have also produced the official presentation Video of the 2009 edition.