• 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.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

Division A

• Let’s start with the teams that have to play for staying in Division A. While Belgium and Estonia are in this group without any surprise, Germany and Bulgaria were not awaited here by all of the observers. Belgium did a correct job and with what they showed against Greece, they may come up with a surprise in this classification round and beat some of the teams. Estonia, without their injured top prospect Siim-Sander Vene had no chances to qualify for the Top 12 and will struggle badly to stay in the division. But the teams of Germany and Bulgaria had some quality talent on their roster and their elimination at this stage may be considered as a surprise. While the loss of both SFs for Kay Blümel’s team before the tournament was probably a bigger loss than expected, the Bulgarians lost their European Championship in the surprising defeat against Latvia.
• In the Qualifying round for the semi-finals, the teams that have the best cards right now are France, Croatia, Greece and Lithuania. All of them have now 2 wins and zero losses. Greece has to play Lithuania, Serbia and Italy which is quite a heavier schedule than they had in the group phase. Additionally, the injury of Vladimir Jankovic will hurt the team setup for the next games as so far, the Greek bench was not that much used besides Mantzaris and Papanikolaou. Lithuania, that beat Serbia at the total surprise of everybody has now the great chance to qualify for the semis. They will play against Greece, Spain and Israel and two wins should be enough to qualify. On the other side of the table, France will have to play against Croatia, Turkey and Latvia. The limited inside play of the French team may hurt them as both Croatia and Turkey have dominating inside guys. For the Croats, playing Russia, France and Ukraine will be a tough schedule but the team showed so far that they are semi-final material.
• The top scorers of the tournament so far are the inside guys Enes Kanter and Marios Delas. The 16 year old Turk averaged so far 24.3ppg and 10.3rpg while the more versatile Croatian forward comes up with 21.3ppg, 9,0rpg and 2.7apg.

Division B

• In Division B, we have only three undefeated left, the two favorites Poland and Slovenia and more surprisingly Austria. And these Austrians are already sure to play for the Top8 as Montenegro came up with a surprising loss tonight against the Netherlands. So we will see tomorrow the top game of Group A between Austria and the Czech Republic.
• Group B has Slovenia above all, as the team around Dino Muric had no problems to beat their opponents by huge margins. Switzerland maybe lost their chances to qualify for the Top8 by getting beat by Sweden today. The Nordic team has their last game tomorrow against the still winless Irish guys and with a win, they will go for the Qualification round for moving up to Division A.
• Group C has its dominators in the Polish team that has a great bunch of talent on its roster. Only England gave them some trouble so far and Poland will have their last game tomorrow against the surprising Portuguese team. The team around the scoring Joao Soares is already qualified for the Top8 as they have beaten Romania which is the only team that still can come up with the same record as Portugal after the bad loss of England tonight against Belarus.
• Group D is probably the one with the most surprise as the highly talented Georgian team is not sure yet to move to the next round. They absolutely need a win tomorrow against Finland in order to move to the next round. Denmark has already finished their group phase and surprisingly lost against Hungary in a game that could have secured them a Top8 spot. Now they have to hope on a Georgia loss in order to continue their dream of moving up.
• The top scorer so far in the competition is the 1991 born Slovakian guard Richard Grznár with 23.3ppg and shooting an incredible 13/19 from behind the arc.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

Division A

• While Spain struggled one half to beat Belgium, the Greek team continued their arrogant play. After a superb start into the game and leading by around 20 points, they stopped to play and let Israel come back in the game. The Israeli even went ahead in the third quarter, but this was the alarm signal for Kosta Sloukas and his mates. They started a late rush to win the game with 22 points. While Nikos Pappas is still going very slow, it’s Kosta Sloukas who takes over the leader role of the team with his 23pts and 6asts. Vladimir Jankovic showed also his versatility and Zisis Sarikopoulos continues to score on his left handed hook shots.
• Serbia had no problem to win against Estonia while Lithuania beat Italy in a thriller. For the Italians, Nicolo Melli seems to start his European Championship a bit slower but he came up with 13pts yesterday. For his team, it looks like Pasquale Paolisso is the man that takes the responsibility while David Cournooh is still the main option from outside. For the Lithuanians, the 1991 born guard Augustas Peciukevicius excels with his aggressive play that brings him to the line often and puts the opponents under pressure. Tautvydas Slezas is doing his job in the middle with 22pts and 14rebs.
• Germany struggled again with the turnovers against Russia and have to play a Final against Ukraine today in order to advance to the next round. A Ukrainian team that had no chance against France that finally opened their defense box and allowed only 50 points. Chrislain Cairo improves and comes up with 12 and 9 while Alexis Tanghe led all scorers with 15 and 8.
• Another final will be played in the last group between Latvia and Bulgaria, both team have no wins so far. It was Toni Prostran that managed to hold of the Bulgarians in the final minutes with 4 late points to seal the deal. Turkey also needed the final seconds to win against Latvia to remain undefeated. Enes Kanter was once again dominant in the middle where nobody could stop him.

Division B

• The favorites Czech Republic and Slovenia had no problems to win their openers against the Netherlands and Sweden. Also Poland continued their winning streak and are now 2-0 after they defeated Belarus easily.
• The division also has already some surprises with the two Alpine countries Austria and Switzerland still being undefeated. Austria held off Montenegro and increased its chances to move to the Qualifying round while the Swiss also beat a former Yugoslavian country with Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

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.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

• The team of Real Madrid won the Spanish U20 Circuit this weekend in Inca. They beat Unicaja Malaga in the Finals easily with 74-52. Pablo Aguilar got named MVP of the tournament.
• Vladimir Jankovic, one of the best players during the Albert-Schweitzer Tournament signed a 4 year deal with Panionios Athens. He will however be loaned to BC Mega Aqua Monte in Serbia to get some playing time.
• This weekend is played the Euro-Essonne tournament for U18 teams in France. After two days of play, Latvia has won its two games and looks like the Final winner. Germany and Croatia play for the 2nd spot while France will most likely 4th out of 4 teams.
• Samuel Deguara, the 2m22 tall 1991 born player from Benetton Treviso,  is currently playing with the Maltese Senior National Team in the C-Division European Championship in Edinburgh. He came up with a double-double in Day two with 13pts and 15rebs.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

Nikos Pappas (1m93 – Shooting Guard – Greece)

What a show by Nikos Pappas it was in Mannheim. The 1990 born guard, who was already with the U18 last summer to win the Silver Medal behind the incredible efforts of Kosta Koufos, was the absolute leader of the team and a well deserved MVP of the competition. With his basketball skills and his leadership, he become a crowd favorite from the first day of the tournament.

I had the possibility to see Nikos in two games during the tournament, unfortunately not his 39pts semi-final party where he scored 11pts in overtime to qualify the Greek team for the Finals. But what I saw was enough to describe you a bit his game. Pappas lives a lot from his drives, mostly on the left. He finishes them near the glass in a sort of fade-away style that draws a lot of fouls and gives him the possibility to go against taller guys. Due to his developed body, he is not bounced around and can handle physical pressure in the paint. Despite being right handed, he prefers the drive of the left, even if he finishes often with his right hand there.

Not being the quickest guy around, he uses a very good footwork and direction changes to get rid of the faster defenders. He reads the defense very well so that he is not dependant on a quick first step. For example, in the game against the USA in the first round, the US defense always let him on his favorite left side, he always recognized it and went to the rim. Due to his good fakes, he gets some open looks and also gets possibilities to pass to the cutters when the help comes.

Concerning his three point shot, the efficiency was ok, but it is not one of his main offensive weapons. Finishing the tournament with 12/40 from behind the arc and 41/56 from 2 point area shows however that he probably goes still a bit too much for the three point shot on which he has of course the range, but he is not a real shooter.

What is more interesting is his presence in the rebound area. 6.7rpg of which 2.85 were in the offense (team best and 6th best of the tournament) show that he is a real factor in this area. Most of the offensive rebounds came of his own (few) misses around the basket.

Pappas showed no real in-between game as he never really had to go for mid range jump shots because he created the situation for himself and went to the basket. He nearly never played the role of the through-the-screens running shooter. Defensively, he showed nothing particular as this was not his role with the team.

Konstantinos Papanikolaou (2m01 – Forward – Greece)

The young forward from Aris Salonici made the biggest step since the last U18 European Championship. Mostly playing the PF position, Papanikolaou will probably develop into a SF in the future. Some compare him with Dimitris Diamantidis and a future at the PG spot which is possible, but for the moment, he is mostly playing on the wing.

Papanikolaou showed good post up moves when he received the ball down low and he used them pretty well for scoring. He can also play facing the basket from the three point line where he can use his good athletic fundamentals. Being left handed helps him of course when it comes to attack the sometimes surprised defenders. He is present in defense where he goes for a good amount of steals and he can even go for some block shots due to his long arms.

His range is until the three point line from where he can hit big shots. With some more work in that area, he can become a very reliable player from more than 6m25 and make himself a very good promise for the SF spot.

Vladimir Jankovic (2m02 – Power Forward – Greece)

Here we have the defense minister of the Greek team. Jankovic, despite a very thin physical presence was everywhere on the court and did the dirty job in a spectacular fashion. Highly athletic, Jankovic often came up with above the rim block shots on help defense and it was him that set the athletic highlights in the game against the United States.

He also goes for scoring and has a already correct three point shot. But his presence in essentially in defense where he was the key man for Greece. A lot will depend on his physical built in the next years if he wants to play in the same register in the Euroleague one day. He has however all the tools to go for such a future in a Georgios Printezis or Panagiotis Vassilopoulos fashion.

Kostas Sloukas (1m92 – Guard – Greece)

Sloukas joined the team only after the two first days of competition but he became more and more important as the tournament went ahead. He had his probably best game at the right moment, in the Final. He took the game in his hands as Nikos Pappas was off the chart during the 2nd and 3rd quarter.

Sloukas showed some very interesting shooting skills, especially from behind the arc. Already physically very present, he uses his body to create spaces on his drives. He shared the guard spots with Pappas and the third rotation Evangelos Mantzaris whose contribution reduced with the improving play of Sloukas throughout the tournament.

Leonidas Kasselakis (1m98 – Center – Greece)

Kasselakis started the games for the Greek team at the Center spot despite being only 1m98 tall and not looking like the world’s best athlete. With his large body, he works a lot in the post but mostly goes for fade away jumpers instead of showing interesting post moves. Because of his size, he will be a very limited player as a Center and has to develop some other skills in order to move his game to the wing.

He has already a three point shot, of which he even sometimes abuses despite a limited accuracy. As he is not very fast nor highly athletic, he has probably the most limited potential of the here mentioned Greek players. But I have no problem if he proves me wrong in a few years.

All pictures are from the official website of the tournament

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.