• But let’s start with the surprise of the day. Greek Media outlets announce the possibility of a transfer of Nikos Pappas to Spain. According to these rumors, his agents paid his buyout at Panellinios to make him a free-agent on the market. And these same sources report that the Spanish ACB team of Bilbao wants to sign him. We will keep you updated about this story. (found on TheHoop)
• Before coming to the important stuff, just check out this video clip of the Georgian and Israeli U20 players after the game on Sunday where Israel managed to beat Georgia and advance to the next round.
• Greece is the 2008 U18 European Champion after they beat Lithuania in a tight final 57-50. Another big game by Kostas Sloukas helped them to win over Lithuania. Despite having lost their versatile forward Vladimir Jankovic with a broken foot, the team stepped up and improved during the whole tournament. Belgium and Estonia will move to division B.
• The All-Tournament team of the U18 Division A is the following:
  PG-Kostas Sloukas
  SG-Nikos Pappas
  SF-Mario Delas
  PF-Donatas Motiejunas (MVP)
  C-Enes Kanter
• Slovenia hammered everybody in Division B of the U18 European Championships and will promote together with the Czech Republic to Division. The final has been won by Slovenia 68-60 against the Czechs.
• The All-Tournament team of the U18 Division B is the following:
  PG-Mirza Sarajlija
  SG-Tomas Satoransky
  SF-Marko Vranjkovic
  PF-Jakub Wojciechowsky
  C-Jan Vesely
• In the U20 European Championship of Division A, 4 teams go with 2 wins and zero losses to the Qualifying round which starts tomorrow. Lithuania, Italy, France and a surprising Montenegro team have now good possibilities to advance to the semis. The story about Montenegro is of course that the team has only lost 1 official game in its history so far, a surprising loss against Austria in last year’s B Division campaign. Greece, Georgia, Bulgaria and Slovenia will fight for the two spots to remain in Division A though.

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Division A

• Croatia did not have too much problems to beat a Latvian team that won’t probably repeat their Bronze medal act from last year. Mario Delas was everywhere for the Croats with 24pts, 9rebs and 3asts.
• Germany beat France in a very important game already as this group looked pretty equal. The M&Ms were on fire with Maurice Stuckey scoring 20pts in 23 minutes and Maik Zirbes going for a double-double with 22pts and 11trebs.
• In the game of the night, Greece overcame Spain in a closer game than everyone thought in the beginning. The Greeks started quickly despite a calm game of Nikos Pappas. They increased their lead and used their inside players Leonidas Kaselakis and Zisis Sarikopoulos very well against a small Spanish team. In the 2nd half, when Spain was switching to a zone, the could come back behind some good defensive efforts and a few nice plays by Alejandro Hernandez. However, it was Vladimir Jankovic and Konstantinos Papanikolaou who sealed the game in the game and a last second three pointer from mid-court by the Spanish guard could not change the result.
• Serbia, who misses all their players of Crvena Zvezda because of injury, struggled badly in their opener of the tournament and lost 83-68 against a Lithuanian team that was lead by Tautvydas Slezas and his 16pts, 13rbs, 3asts and 2blks. For Serbia, it was especially Bojan Subotic who was far away from his normal level with 2/10 shooting and 0/3 FTs.
• Bulgaria had nearly the comeback of the day after trailing by 17 in the fourth quarter. But it was not enough against the 24pts and 9rebs of Enes Kanter for the Turkish team.
• ERT World Sat broadcasts the game of the Greek U18 team. You can follow the Live Stream here from tomorrow’s game Greece-Israel starting at 18h00 CET.

Division B

• Poland had a lot of trouble to win against a English team without Ryan Richards who is not with the team because of slight injuries. Behind the 30pts of 1991 born guard Sebastian Szymanski, the Polish team won despite having their top prospect Jakub Wojciechowski fouled out in just 16 minutes. England coach Andre Alleyne told me after the game that he wasn’t happy in the way we played defense in the first half. We picked it up in the second and if we transfer that to the Portugal game tomorrow, we will be in a better position. The goal of the team is to finish better than last year (18th) and everything below 10th place would be a failure in coach Alleyne’s mind.
• Austria had a nice win to start into the tournament and put some pressure on the Netherlands. Behind the great effort of Rasid Mahalbasic who scored 28pts and had 10rebs, the team of coach Robert Langer has now chances to go to the next round. It was a very intensive game. Our team has fought very well and we stuck together. We have overpowered the Dutch but we can improve, told the coach after the game to the press.
• Sweden managed to beat Bosnia-Herzegovina behind 21pts in 24 minutes of Omar Zaghden. The Swedish PF got some nice support from his outside scorers Andreas Person and Christopher Czerapowicz who both were in double figures. The Bosnian team relied a bit too much on Dino Hodzic who had to do it all.
• Finland outscored Hungary in the second quarter 30-14 to go for their first win. A surprising performance by the Kouvot SF Matti Nuutinen with 22pts and 10rebs and the awaited scoring efforts of Sasu Salin and Roopi Ahonen were enough to give the Hungarians their first loss.
• One of the tournament favorites Slovenia will start their run for Division A tomorrow when they will play against the other strong team of their group Sweden.

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Group A

The first group of the tournament features five teams that with the exception of Norway can hope to advance to the next round. In fact, two teams qualify for the Top8 in each group and have the possibility play for moving up to Division A.

The Czech Republic looks a bit like the favorite in this group as they feature some high quality players like Jan Vesely and David Jelinek but also has quality guys like Adam Zampach or Tomas Satoransky on its roster. However, the team disappointed heavily last year where they could not manage to win more than 4 games in the tournament. But still, on the talent level, they should not have any opposition in this field

Montenegro will be driven by the 2m13 of Milos Lopicic who has already played an interesting competition last year with the U18 team. He will get passes from the 1991 born PG Stevan Lazovic who is currently playing for the Italian team of Bari.

Austria could become the outsider in this group with the best chances to move on. The generation that finished 4th at the U16 B Division level 2 years ago has matured and is now ready to attack the next tournament. I spoke with coach Robert Langer and he gave me the following info about the current situation of his team.

If everything goes well, we can reach the same level of play this year than we had 2 years ago at the U16 tournament where played face to face with nations like Georgia or the Czech Republic. And if we reach the Top8, everything is possible for us.

During the qualification, which was chosen to be especially intensive, we had some bad losses but also showed that we can play the teams we are facing in Debrecen. We lost maybe to the Czech Republic three times, but that was in the beginning of our preparation. We played against teams like Latvia, Slovenia or Turkey to see what the level is. Maybe we lost, but now we have to win. And to win every game is possible.

Unfortunately, we had some injuries during the year and even now, we have to let away some of our important rotation players. This gave us on the other hand the possibility to bring in some talented 1991 kids.

The Austrian team will be led by its combo of Moritz Lanegger who was the All-Tournament PG two years ago and the forward Rasid Mahalbasic who averaged already 7.7ppg in the Austrian Bundesliga. The surprise however could come from scoring guard Jesse Seilern und Aspang of Kapfenberg Bulls.

The Netherlands have put together a team that also has some chances to move to the next round as they showed during their preparation. Especially during the Albert Schweitzer Tournament this spring where the team showed some promises for B Division. And the head coach Tyronne Marioneaux is pretty optimistic as he told FIBA Europe.

My expectation is that we can win it. And the reason I think that is because last year, I was with the U16 and we played against both finalists, Hungary and Poland. We were up 10 points in the first quarter against Hungary and we were ahead of Poland by five points with a couple minutes to go. So the experience was important. If I can get my guys stronger, I really think we have a chance, especially after this (Albert Schweitzer) tournament. When I see what we could do here, it gives me a lot of confidence for what’s coming up.

Luuk Kortekaas, who recently signed for Niagara University in the NCAA seems to be the man in the middle who should help the Dutch team to move to the next round.

For Norway, who probably is the weakest team of the group, Anders Stien has to go for miracles if they want to qualify into the next round. But with their short team, only one player taller than 2m, the Nordics will probably play aggressive defense. At least, they managed to win the Nordic Championship this Spring which is not a bad performance.

Group B

In this group, there is a clear cut favorite with Slovenia that had to come down to division B after their mediocre showing in Madrid last year. But this year, the team of coach Rade Mijanovic should be among the best squads in the tournament as the 1990 generation features some interesting players. Matej Bergant, who follows the Slovenian basketball for eurobasket.com gave me his insight on the U18 team from his homecountry.

Slovenia U18 NT goal is to try and qualify from U18 B division again to division A. Our youngsters fall to B division last year after winning only two teams (Croatia and Romania) and losing to Bulgaria, Italy, Germany and Lithuania.

Slovenia U18 performed well in the preparation period, losing only twice, once against Turkey in a strange game (few players responded on Turkish provocations and started a mass fight which ended in a way that Turkish players decided to leave the court) and once against Poland. During the preparation period in my opinion the main roles were given to Sarajlija, Murič and Vranjkovič.

I have high expectations for this team, I believe it’s very talented and I think we have decent chances to qualify to A division of European Championship U18 – although Montenegro and few other National Teams have same expectations as well.

The PG Mirza Sarajlija will of course split some defenses with his drives and Dino Muric will do his job everywhere on the court. The surprise of the tournament may however by the sharpshooter Matic Sirnik who signed his first professional contract with Olimpija a few weeks ago.

The team from Switzerland is a one of the more unknown teams in this competition but it features some guys that could be interesting to follow in the next years. First of all, there is PG Cedric von Düring who played for the German NBBL team of Bonn/Rhöndorf and signed recently a professional contract with ratiopharm Ulm. On the other, and probably even more interesting will be the performance of Stefan Petkovic who played already some ULEB Cup minutes despite being only born in November 1992.

The group of players from Bosnia-Herzegovina will probably be among the teams that has some chances to move up to division A this year. Their back court looks promising with Dino Hodzic and Eldin Camdzic but also the inside section looks interesting with seven footer Aldin Klinac and the 1991 born PF Nermin Buza.

Sweden looks like the biggest competition in this group for Slovenia as they showed during their excellent presentation in Mannheim this spring. Coach Tommie Hansson told me the following about his team and its preparation.

We are getting better every day and thanks to AST we are really well prepared going in to the tournament.

We have a really tough group but if we succeed coming out as one of the two first teams of our group I think we can beat all the other teams in the tournament. We will have a lot of confidence coming in to the playoffs.

Andreas Person, Alexander Lindqvist and Christopher Czerapovich are three players that I think will be really good players in the future. Kevin Okot and Jonathan Larsson are two other players that have developed a lot the last two years.

I think Czech Republic, Montenegro, Slovenia, Bosnia and Poland will be our strongest opponents.

So I don’t have a lot to add here as Tommie already presented the main guys of his team for Debrecen where only Christopher Ryan will not be present because of injury problems.

For Ireland, the trip to Debrecen will probably become pretty tough as the team faces a lot of stronger and taller opponents. Additionally, most of these young kids have never faced such a level of play. This may change however as the Irish Superleague has to decided to have from next season at least 3 home grown players on the court at every moment to give its younger kids playing time at the highest level of their national league.

Group C

Coming to the third group of the competition, we have to start with Portugal. Last year, the team feature a high profile player with Claudio Fonseca, but this year, there is no name that strikes out right now. The preparation had some ups and downs with a particularly huge defeat against Spain. So it looks like the team of coach Alvaro Amiel will have some hard work to do in Debrecen.

Another team and another time not that much to say. Even more unknown than Portugal the Belarus roster is filled with names that I am not familiar with. Good luck to them.

Poland features a nice roster built around the Benetton Treviso prospect Jakub Wojciechowski. The Polish big guy with the excellent shooting stroke will try to lead his team to a possible Division A spot but he needs to get some support by his team mates. 1991 born Sebastian Szymanski could be the necessary back court guy to make the game more variable. The team will in any way be among the Top8 and can go for it all.

England features a nice bunch of talent but the problem is if they can stick together and play. In the preparation, with losses against teams like Ireland or the Netherlands, they showed that their team play is still limited. Ryan Richards and his team mates have to improve during the tournament if they want to have a chance to go up.

Romania comes of a terrible tournament last year in Division A after the went up the year before behind their great 1988 generation. Not a lot to add from my side though as I don’t know any players on their roster.

Group D

Georgia looks like the big favorite of this group as the team features an incredible amount of young talent. Nika Metreveli, who is playing for Montepaschi Siena’s youth teams looks like the team leader. He gets support in the back court from Konstantine Tomaradze who plays for FC Barcelona. During the preparation, the team has beaten Division A team Ukraine twice and showed their potential.

Denmark is totally unknown to me and they will probably struggle to go for wins in this group. Nicolas Christensen was the name of the 2007 squad that is still there and that had already some impact in the game last summer.

Finland looks like having an interesting roster to play this tournament. With their typical game of outside shooting and team defense, they have the possibility to go to the next round, something that my friend Hippo can confirm.

This team does have the tools to climb up to Division A, but the team can afford no mistakes or injuries. While they have the chance to finish first in Div B championship, they might as well drop down to somewhere between 8th and 12th spot.

The best pro prospects in this team are SASU SALIN, a 187cm, 1991 born combo guard who had a solid rookie season with the Honka Playboys and ROOPE AHONEN of ToPo Helsinki, a 187 cm, 1990 born guard who has impressive offensive abilities for someone so young. Big man SAMULI VANTTAJA (203 cm, 1991) is raw but promising; he can play basically three positions, is faster than most guards but at the same time is physically as raw as tomorrow’s sushi. Vanttaja also has to find stability; he can finish with 14/8 and 3 blocks in game 1, but with 0/1 and four fouls in game 2.

Hungary may come up with some surprises this summer as they have an interesting amount of talent on their roster. David Vojvoda was already a great scorer last year for the team and he should have improved over the season. Additionally, you have the very promising big guy Adam Lepsenyi who dominated during last years U16 European championship. Another player to observe is probably Norbert Takacs who could not play the U16 in 2007.

Slovak Republic is another unknown team that comes to Debrecen and I hope to get some more info on them in the future.

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In the last part of my review of the Reebok Eurocamp 2008 in Treviso, I will tell who were the big guys that impressed the most during the camp.

Serge Ibaka (2m09 – Power Forward – 1989 – L’Hospitalet)

Serge Ibaka was the prospect that was observed the most by the NBA scouts because of his extraordinary physical set. Standing 2m09 tall and displaying a wing span of 2m22 with a vertical jump of 85cm, Ibaka is a rare specimen for European standards. Additionally, Ibaka played only in the second Spanish League which made him even more mysterious for people coming from the United States. So what is he about?

First of all, you see that Ibaka lacks a lot of basketball experience. He jumps on nearly every fake and took some bad decision in game situations. Also in the offense, you saw him having serious trouble when starting for drives or putting the ball on the floor which caused him a lot of turnovers due to travel violations. A lot of work is ahead in this department. But on the other hand, Ibaka has already a nice offensive set to score despite being only 18 years old. He has correct shooting touch and can even hit the three point shot. He works very hard on the offensive rebound where he can go for spectacular put back dunks. In defense, he is a good shot blocker but may have to go for better choices when he needs to block and when to avoid the foul call. As Ibaka is reported to stay in Draft, he is a good catch for a long term prospect but he would probably have close to zero impact if he joins a NBA right now.

Vladimir Stimac (2m06 – Center – 1987 – Valmiera/Zalgiris Kaunas)

Vladimir Stimac is probably the worst physical specimen if you go just by his numbers. But he has basketball talent. And knows also how to use his impressive body. Looking exhausted when only entering the floor, Stimac transforms into an absolute beast and fighter under the basket. He gives always 110% and does all the dirty work you need to win a game.

Stimac has excellent positioning in the paint and he is very hard to move. He has no real moves but with his force he puts his defenders so much in trouble that he comes up often with high percentage shots or layups. His shooting touch is not too bad, he can even hit an occasional three but his game is really in the post. Additionally, Stimac displayed some very correct passing skills in a few high-low plays and he loves to play the pick and roll with his guards.

Artem Zabelin (2m17 – Center – 1988 – CSKA Moscow)

Zabelin looks like an incredible talent with fantastic size, excellent fundamentals and a great shot. However, he still has not played anywhere close to his potential on the professional level over the past years. So the camp was once again a demonstration for his skillset which includes nearly everything the modern basketball player needs.

Zabelin has an excellent shooting touch until the three point line from where he can hit several shots in a game, from all around the arc. He also showed some very impressive ball handling skills and drives in traffic which is a very rare gift for a player of his size. In defense, Zabelin is present with some great block shots which are however more the result of his great size than of a particular shot blocking timing. But the main problem that remains with Zabelin is that is nowhere close for the moment to have an impact on the professional level, which may be the result of his soft play. Having turned 20 this winter, Zabelin definitely needs some accrued playing time in order to develop his skills and become a player up to his potential.

Henk Norel (2m13 – Center – 1987 – Alicante/DKV Joventut)

Henk Norel had a very interesting camp where he showed all his potential and the result of several years of hard work in Spain. In those years, he has build a nice body which is far away from the thin kid we saw a few years ago. What has remained however is his very aggressive and quick way to run the floor.

Coming to the basketball part, Norel showed a nice arsenal of offensive scoring possibilities. Mostly acting in the post, he displayed several moves with his back to the basket. He showed nice fakes that looked well coordinated and properly used in order to score on easy layups. He can also use his speed in order to turn around his defender and go up for nice powerful dunks. Three point range is there too, but not one of the main scoring options.

Jakub Wojciechowski (2m13 – Power Forward – 1990 – Benetton Treviso)

The Polish power forward who is since quite a time active for Benetton Treviso was one of the youngest players in the camp and since he never got featured here, I come up with a short report on him. Standing 2m15 tall, Wojciechowski has an amazing shooting touch and can hit three pointers in series. His jump shot looks very sweet and is currently his main offensive weapon. As he only turned 18 this year, Wojciechowski has still a lot of upside and when he adds a bit more kilos and a more developed penetration game, he can become a very interesting face-up player on the PF position.

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