European Prospects

The qualification round is done and the semi-finals are set. Europeanprospects.com will be back in Mannheim on Friday for the round of the last 4. So here we go for a quick round-up of the the games of the 2nd day of the Qualification round.

• In the Bottom 8, the main result is of course the large defeat of France against Greece. Despite playing mostly with the reserves, France is really disappointing after their nice debut in the tournament. The French look really depressive, no high-level Point Guard and top scorer Evan Fournier who was really off too. France needs really to find a way to turn around if they want to bring back a good result this summer at the U18 European Championship. For Greece, Linos Chrysikopoulos was the top scorer with 17pts, 4rebs and 3stls. With this defeat, France will play for the 13th place against Japan; what a pity. Greece will play against China for the 9th place while Israel will meet Brazil in the game for the 11th spot.
• In the Top8, Australia and USA qualified for the semis. Australia beat the Team USA in probably one of the best games of the tournament so far behind a massive effort of Mitchell Creek who had 23pts and 11rebs. On the American side, Ryan Boatright had 27pts but his shot was a bit off while Chris Manhertz did the job in the paint with 6pts, 12rebs and 4blks.
• Germany U18 beat Germany U17 behind 19pts of Philipp Neumann. The German inside power got support in the paint from Daniel Theis who had 15pts, 7rebs and 3blks while Lars Wendt continues to be a scoring threat coming of the bench. For the U17 team, Tim Unterluggauer came back after his illness with 10pts, 9rebs and 2blks. Germany U18 will play in the semis versus USA while Germany U17 will face Australia on Friday evening.
• Spain will face Italy for the 5th place on Saturday while Turkey will play against Croatia for the 7th spot.