(Hippo) Finland U20 team has been preparing for the Division B European championship games from late May and has been relatively successful, upsetting Croatia in the Martinsicuro International Tournament in Italy and ending the preparation period by beating Estonia 108-73 at home. In total, Finland has won four out of eight preparation games in 2011 (wins: Norway, Denmark, Croatia, Estonia; losses: Sweden, Italy, Serbia, Estonia).

Even though Union Olimpija shooting guard Sasu Salin is missing from the U20 team due to men’s national team duties, this group has some talents who could one day earn professional money playing in Europe. Here’s a brief recap of the most interesting international names in Finnish u20 roster.

Carl Lindbom – 2m06 – power forward – Frankfurt Skyliners (GER)

Big man Lindbom is a late bloomer who has improved dramatically during the 2010/11 season with German Bundesliga team Frankfurt Skyliners. Despite playing sparingly with Skyliners, Lindbom has created an ability to create his own shot and score at will even against tougher defenses. During the last two years, Lindbom’s lower body strength has been an issue, but his footwork and low post defense already seem good enough even for men’s national team rotation.

Lindbom in summer 2011: 13.6ppg, 6.9rpg

Samuli Vanttaja– 2m10 – power forward

Vanttaja practiced independently during the summer of 2010 and was able to bring up his confidence to level good enough to perform well in Finnish Korisliiga and international VTB League games with Honka Playboys. Vanttaja has been rumored to join Italian Serie A club Cimberio Varese for 2011/12 season, but as far as we know, the big man has still a contract with Espoon Honka. Vanttaja is an interesting prospect with his high-arch long range shot, good positioning and capability to defend opposing centers and power forwards. He has good fundamentals and he seems to be on a brink of personal breakthrough.

Vanttaja in summer 2011: 7.6ppg, 5.4rpg

Antto Nikkarinen– 1m85 – point guard – Kouvolan Kouvot

Nikkarinen was handled the starting point guard duties of very young Kouvot team and the bright young man performed well in his over 30 minutes a game. Even though Nikkarinen’s size and athleticism could become issues, his natural ability to create plays and make shots make him an interesting prospect.

Nikkarinen in summer 2011: 8.6ppg, 3.5rpg, 2.1apg

Here is the full roster of Finnish u20 team:

• Robin Nordman – 2m03 – 1992
• Markus Molenius – 2m04 – 1992
• Alex Vaenerberg – 1m84 – 1992
• Villematti Kopio – 1m83 – 1992
• Alexi Alanen – 1m94 – 1991
• Antto Nikkarinen – 1m85 – 1991
• Lauri Toivonen – 2m00 – 1991
• Osku Heinonen – 1m94 – 1992
• Kilian Cato – 2m02 – 1992
• Mikael Sandberg – 2m10 – 1991
• Carl Lindbom – 2m06 – 1991
• Samuli Vanttaja – 2m10 – 1991

Finland U20 Preview is a post from: European Prospects
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• 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.

Today’s picks is a post from: European Prospects
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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.

Today’s picks (from the U18 European Championships) is a post from: European Prospects
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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.

Today’s picks (from the U18 European Championships) is a post from: European Prospects
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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.

Today’s picks (from the U18 European Championships) is a post from: European Prospects
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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.

U18 European Championship Division B – Preview is a post from: European Prospects
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