European Prospects

The Easter Weekend is generally packed with interesting tournaments. Here we go for a quick review of the results of the main events from the last days.

Villagarcia Basketball Cup

The Villagarcia Basketball Cup ended a bit with a surprise as the Italian team won it all behind a stellar performance of their guard Amadeo delle Valle. He finished top scorer of the tournament with 20.3ppg far ahead of the second Hugo Invernizzi with 14.6ppg. Spain finished second, Germany third and a disappointing French team was at the last place. Francesco Candussi was the top player in terms of Ranking points with 17.3rkgpg in front of Invernizzi and delle Valle. Mam Jaiteh, the 1994 born big guy from France finished best Rebounder of the tournament. For Germany, the most impressive players were Paul Albrecht and Johannes Richter while Spain was lead by the Real Madrid inside player Guillermo Hernan-Gomez.

Cholet Mondial Basket

Urspring Academy from Germany won the Cholet Mondial Basket Tournament by beating BC Torrejon from Spain in the Final. Julius Wolf played a great tournament and crowned his weekend with an impressive stat line the Final: 22pts, 16rebs, 3asts. He got scoring support by 94 born Malik Müller who had 16pts and Kenneth Ogbe who finished with 11pts (but 4/18 FGs), 4rebs and 5asts. The Spanish side was lead by Sergio Herranz who had 22pts 6rebs while Cheikh Diagne dominated the paint with 14rebs but only 1/7 shooting. Cholet finished third by beating Stella Azzurra 71-51 behind 19pts+12rebs of Bruno Cingala Mata. On the Italian team, Alessandro Paesano topped the scorers with 15pts and 7rebs. The All-Tournament team was composed of Nikola Simic (Zitko), Bruno Duranti (Stella Azzurra), Julius Wolf (Urspring), Vincent Gaillard (Chalon) and Cheikh Diagne (BC Torrejon).

Memorial Barila

The Under-17 tournament in Italy has been won by Virtus Siena who managed to beat Cedevita Zagreb in the Final 74-67. The third place was for Khimki Moscow who managed to beat Team Ohio 78-64 in the Bronze Medal Game. 1994 born Riccardo Rovere from Siena finished top scorer of the tournament in front of Michele Peroni from sixth-placed Arona. The English and Hungarian U16 National Teams, who were both a year younger than the competition finished 13th respectively 16th out of the 16 participants. You can also find some Video Extracts from different games on the official Homepage of the tournament.

Tournoi Mondial Basket Tourcoing

The Serbian Selection won the Tournament by beating the Canarias Basketball Academy in the Final. The third place was for the Elite Selection Team from the United States around NBA prospect Adonis Thomas. We do not have more info on the tournament at the moment.

Holland Nordic Basketball Tournament

The favorite from Poland managed to win the Holland Nordic Basketball tournament by beating the Norwegian U20 National Team in the Final 69-55. The third place was for the locals of Gasterra Flames who overcame Bremerhaven 76-66. Poland was lead throughout the tournament by Michal Michalak while the main prospects Mateusz Ponitka and Przemyslaw Karnowski got some rest after their trip to the Nike Hoop Summit. Both played only limited minutes. Michalak had 22pts and 6rebs in the Final after averaging 15.2ppg throughout the tournament. Tomasz Gielo finished with 16rebs in the Final. The Norwegian team was lead by Stian Emil Berg who scored 15 in the Final while Karamo Jawara had 8pts. The MVP trophy of the tournament was for the Polish forward Piotr Niedzwiecki while the trophy of the best offensive player was for Aleksa Subaric from Leskovac.

Trofeo Pasqua Barocca

Greece won the U16 National Team after beating all three teams competing with them. The squad around Michalis Liapis (14.0ppg) won all three games and emerges as one of the teams to beat this summer at the U16 European Championship.Spain finished second behind the nice scoring efforts of Javier de la Blanca who won the Top-scorer trophy of the whole tournament as the Real Madrid prospect averaged 22.0ppg. De la Blanca had a monster game on against Italy where he scored 31pts (13/16 FGs, 5/7FTs), grabbed 8rebds, stole 4 balls and rejected two shots. The trophy for the most “prospective” player for the future was for the very long Ilimane Diop from Spain. Italy was lead by Nicola Akele who also won the Fair-Play Trophy while the most impressive player for Germany was Gavin Schilling.

Tournoi International La Roche sur Yon

The U16 tournament in La-Roche-sur-Yon has been dominated by Edvinas Seskus from VLM Vilmesta. The Jordan Brand Classic participant scored 30pts and 16rebs in the Final where the second Lithuanian team of Knasiaus had no chance. The third place was for Hermine de Nantes behind the 23pts 5rebs of Jules Guichard over a team from Le Havre that struggled because of several injuries. BC Torrejon finished 5th with 14pts from Martin Martinez while Urspring was lead by the 12pts of Zaire Thompson.

Scania Cup

The U18 competition has been won by Pyrintö from Finland who were lead by SF Joonas Caven. They managed to beat SBBK in the Final 62-56. The Swedish team was lead by the tournament MVP Tobias Borg. Both were in the All-Tournament that was completed by Peter Möller, Rasmus Larsen (both Vaerlöse) and Daniel Dolenc from Honka Espoo. Other MVPs were Filip Kovacek (SBBK – 1995) and Ludvig Hakansson (Alvik – 1996).

We might go into more details on some tournaments in the next days depending on the information we get.