European Prospects

The Cholet Mondial Basket U18 tournament will be played this weekend from Friday to Sunday in the French city. As the official rosters have been published, we take a quick look through them to see who will be present and have also a first result of a preparation game.

The main name that stays out is of course the Croatian Dario Saric (94) who is on the roster of KK Zargeb. He was also announced with the Croatian U18 National Team for the Albert Schweitzer Tournament. He is currently with the 14 player squad in the training camp of the Croatian U18 National Team in Crikvenica preparing for Mannheim, so it is not very clear where and when he will play. The possibility of doing Cholet first and going to the Albert Schweitzer Tournament for the 2nd round may exist but he will probably be with the National Team.

BCM Ostrava comes to Cholet with Jaromir Bohacik who played for the Czech U18 National Team already last summer. Unelco Tenerife comes with a very “African” squad including several very young players like Modou Mbaye or Lamine Dieye. Mbaye is considered as one of the most talented players of the 1994 generation by Eurohopes. Spirou Charleroi comes with one of the shortest teams and features at first sight no outstanding names. BC Torrejon features also a very international roster with 3 Senegalese players and one Bulgarian. KK Parklji Ljubljana from Slovenia features Bojan Radulovic who normaly plays for Olimpija Ljubljana but also several other Youth National team players. The English Barking Abbey comes back from a strong performance at the NIJT in London with PG Josh Johnson but also some younger players like the 2m12 tall Dylan Johns or the 95 born Dwayne Orija.

KK Zitko played a preparation game this Tuesday against the local senior team of Jeune-France Cholet that plays in the 6th French League and the U18s from Belgrade won 93-84. The Serbians were led by 23pts of Bojan Bogdanovic and Nemanja Miskovic who had 20pts. Perica Bobic added 14 too.

For the French teams present in Cholet, ASVEL looks of course very interesting with the same team they have played the NIJT in Belgrade around big forward Noel Gide and Adrien Coussy. The three other French teams seem less loaded as most of the 92-93 prospects are with the French National Team playing the Albert Schweitzer Tournament. Cholet features of course like every year some interesting players coming from French overseas territories.