The complex is located a bit outside of the city center of Kaunas. It features 4 basketball courts of which 2 are FIBA certified. These two courts are generally used for the games of the teams of the school but also for some games of Senior teams from Kaunas. The two other courts are only used for practices. Next to the courts, the center has a top-notch weight-lifting room, 9 dressing rooms, a cafeteria and a trophy lounge where you can sip a coffee while watching basketball games on the courts or on TV. The dimensions of the center would make lots of professional teams jealous as it features everything that you need for a quality practice.

Currently there are more than 700 kids practicing in the Sabonis school. Depending on their age, they have three to seven practice units per week. The youngest players are around 10 years old while they can stay up to their majority at the age of 18 in the school. The competition is rude among the different Basketball academies as there are 7 Basketball academies in the 350,000 people city of Kaunas alone. From the moment that you can detect a highly interesting talent, all schools try to chase the kid in order to get him in their system. Of course, the Sabonis School has the best options as it is the biggest and the most famous one but this does not mean that their teams are dominating everything as we could see in the games that were running while we were at the complex.

Talking about games, there are about 400 games per season in the center as all the teams compete in different local, regional or national championships. Next to a specific athletic and weight-lifting coach, there are 13 basketball coaches active in the school. They normally follow one generation over several years in order to better understand and see their progress over the years. The kids themselves do not stay overnight at the academy. As most of them come from the city of Kaunas, they stay with their parents but just come to the Sabonis center for the practices. But the school is also recruiting nation-wide and even internationally. For these players, they help to find places where they can live during the week or the season depending on their situation.

Next to the ordinary basketball school, the Sabonis center is also organizing summer and winter camps for any kind of youth basketball teams. You can find more information about these camps on the official website of the academy. The future looks good for Lithuanian basketball with academies like this. It will probably not last long until the next big name is coming out of the Sabonio Krepsinio Centras.

Sabonis Basketball Academy: the pride of Kaunas is a post from: European Prospects
Follow me on Twitter to get even more updates or become a fan on Facebook

So I decided to put all the best articles from 2011 into an e-book format that you can buy now for the symbolic price of 0.99€ on Amazon. The goal is not to make a lot of money but to see a bit how this e-book process works and if this has some potential for the future. The e-book contains more than 80 pages of text including several player portraits, the reports on the main events like the Adidas Eurocamp, NIJT Qualification and Final Tournament as well as the Continental Championships I visited last summer.

All these articles have been published on the website but with this e-book, you can have them available offline on your Mobile Reader when you are traveling. Feel free to check the Preview on the Amazon page to see the whole content that is available. Any kind of reviews, comments or ideas are of course very welcome.

Buy the EuropeanProspects.com – 2011: the Year in Review e-book on

• Amazon.com
• Amazon.de
• Amazon.fr
• Amazon.co.uk

2011: The Year in Review (e-book) is a post from: European Prospects
Follow me on Twitter to get even more updates or become a fan on Facebook

• Swen Nater (Netherlands) with UCLA in 1972 and 1973. He played 11 seasons in the ABA/NBA afterwards. After having built a Basketball program afterwards in San Diego, he now works for Costco and has three goats, two dogs and five cats on his 10-acre ranch outside of Seattle.

• Timo Makkonen (Finland) with North Carolina in 1982.
• Magnus Pelkowski (German-Colombian) with Indiana in 1987. He played several seasons in Germany after his College career. He lives now as an artist and landscape architect in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania.
• Crawford Palmer (USA-France) with Duke in 1991. After the title at Duke, Palmer transfered to Dartmouth and played several seasons of professional Basketball in France. When he earned a French passport, he continued his career even in the ACB and won the Silver Medal with the French National Team at the 2000 Olympics. After having ended his career, he got an administrative job at the French Basketball Federation.
• Christian Ast (Germany) with Duke University in 1991 and 1992.After two seasons with Duke, Ast moved to American University and played several seasons in Germany until he retired in 2006.
• Henrik Rödl (Germany) with North Carolina in 1993. Rödl was one of the most decorated German players of all time as he won the European Championship, the Korac Cup and several German Championships with ALBA Berlin. After he retired, he started coaching and won the German Cup in 2006. After having lead the ALBA Youth Teams to National Title in 2009. He is Head Coach of TBB Trier in the German Bundesliga since 2010.

• Dante Calabria (USA-Italy) with North Carolina in 1993. Calabria was a journey man in Europe after his career at North Carolina waiting for his Italian citizenship which he got in 2000. He played several seasons on the highest European level an even was a member of the Italian National team at the Eurobasket 2005. He is still active today and plays for the Italian third division team Nuove Frontiere Sant’Antimo.

• Davor Rimac (Croatia) with Arkansas in 1994. After having graduated Rimac played several seasons in Croatia before moving to Switzerland in 2000 where he finished his career in 2005.
• Jiri Zidek (Czech Republic) with UCLA in 1995. Zidek played several seasons in the NBA before he moved to Zalgiris Kaunas and become the first and only European to have won the NCAA National Championship and the Euroleague. He finished his career in 2005 and works as Consultant for Euroleague TV now. The Zidek family is until today the only family where both father (Jiri Sr.) and son have reached a Euroleague Final.

• Ben Gordon (UK-USA) with the University of Connecticut in 2004. After being drafted by the Chicago Bulls as 3rd overall pick, Gordon is still an active NBA player and is now a member of the Detroit Pistons. He could play for the UK National Team this summer during the Eurobasket in Lithuania.

• Joakim Noah (France) with the University of Florida in 2006 and 2007. Noah got drafted as 9th overall pick by the Chicago Bulls and is still an active NBA player. Several nations try to get him on their National team but he will most likely decide to play for France. His father was a famous Tennis player while his grand-father was a professional soccer player originally from Cameroon.

• Sasha Kaun (Russia) with the University of Kansas in 2008. Kaun was drafted in 2008 by the Sonics but he never played in the NBA and signed for the Russian powerhouse CSKA Moscow in 2008. He reached the Euroleague Final Four twice but never won the supreme European title.

• Niels Giffey (Germany) and Enosch Wolf (Germany) with the University of Connecticut in 2011. Both won the title in their Freshman year.

Europeans having won the NCAA National Championship is a post from: European Prospects
Follow me on Twitter to get even more updates or become a fan on Facebook

The team will compete in different tournaments between the 3rd and 16th July 2011. The European players participating in this tour will be given the opportunity to compete in this USA travel team basketball tour. The team  will be seen by 300+ College Coaches in a period of 10 days while playing against many of the top ranked players from the United States. This opportunity will give its participants an excellent chance to earn a full college basketball scholarship from such prestigious universities as Duke and North Carolina as well as Junior Colleges, Division Two schools and everywhere in between.

Head Coach of the team will be Carlos Peralta who has won over 300 High School basketball games and two prep school National Championships. He has placed over 25 players in Division 1 basketball. Several European Youth National Team players have already confirmed their participation to this tour.

The price of this offer is 2060USD due on or before the 1st of May 2011. This fee includes Transportation, 3 square meals a day, Hotels/Resorts (2.5 Stars or Better), Snacks, fruits and drinks. Meals will most likely be middle class buffet style restaurants and box lunches when time is constrained.

Flight to and from the states must be booked and paid for by each participant.

You can find more information on this offer right here and please note that there are only a few spots remaining. Every game from the Tour will be posted online within 24 hours on the ScoutsFocus Website and can be watched for free.

N.B.: EuropeanProspects.com is not involved in the organization of this tour.

International AAU Team looks for players is a post from: European Prospects
Follow me on Twitter to get even more updates or become a fan on Facebook

The U19 World Championship in Latvia

This event is probably going to be the biggest Youth Tournament in 2011. Next to the Team USA that will certainly come over with a serious Gold Medal aspiring team, the presence of the excellent Lithuanian 1992 generation (Valanciunas, Pukis, Redikas, Cizauskas,…), Latvia with their upcoming top star Davis Bertans, Poland and their talented 1993 born players warming up for the U18 European Championship in their home country later in the year, Croatia with most likely their future super-star Dario Saric and Russia with their Silver Medal Team from 2010 will be the main teams to watch. Additionally, the highly talented Australian team that dominated the Albert Schweitzer Tournament in 2010, Canada with certainly several elements from the U17-WC Bronze Medal team, Argentina around the top talent Patricio Garino, China and Taiwan from Asia together with Egypt and Tunisia from Africa will produce a great mix of talent for a very interesting tournament. Europeanprospects.com will be there.

The NBA Draft 2011

The NBA Draft 2011 will probably be one of the most interesting from a European point of view for several years. Not less than 4 European players are currently predicted to become a lottery pick: Jonas Valanciunas, Enes Kanter, Donatas Motiejunas and Jan Vesely. With the NBA lock-out still being a major threat, the possibility that even more Europeans will be picked in the 1st round is rather high. The situation for European based players has never been as interesting in order to be picked in a great revenue-generating position in the Rookie Scale.

The emergence of Nikola Mirotic

Everything is set that 2011 will be the year of Nikola Mirotic. The Montenegro-born Spaniard is slowly getting minutes for Real Madrid and should be able to become a regular contributor until the end of the season; with more to come in the 2011-2012 games. Additionally, the Spanish federation will organize the U20 European Championship in Bilbao where Mirotic will be the leader of the team in order to win the Gold Medal. And why not a early-entrance to the NBA Draft 2011 with a spot in the 1st round. Really, 2011 can be the year of Nikola Mirotic.

The rebirth of Czech Basketball

Czech Basketball is currently in a process of establishing themselves as a future talent pool of high value. The talented 91 generation is set for winning the Gold Medal at the U20 European Championship of Division B, the U18 team got the 1st place in B Division already in 2010 and will compete again on A Division level while the U16 team moved up as well in 2010. In 2011, the Czech Republic will organize the U16 European Championship in Pardubice and Hradec Kralove and they prepared this already last summer as several 1995 born players that should compete in 2011 were already major factors on the U16 team in B Division. With their future top stars Jan Vesely, Tomas Satoransky or David Jelinek in the making, the Senior National team may become one of the major forces in European Basketball in the 2nd half of this new decade.

Bundesliga becomes the youngest major domestic League in Europe

We did the analysis already last summer for the 2009-2010 season: Which league gives the most minutes to young players. By surprise, the German Bundesliga was third in the overall Ranking and even 2nd in terms of Local U22 Minutes versus Total Local Minutes. After the first half of the regular season, it looks like the German League will again improve its numbers concerning the minutes of their young players. Tibor Pleiss, Philipp Schwethelm, Robin Benzing, Maurice Stuckey, Maik Zirbes, Simon Schmitz or Fabian Thülig to just name some of them get more minutes than last season. Some new players have seen the Bundesliga court for the first time like Besnik Bekteshi, Philipp Neumann or Anthony Canty while even some foreign prospects get signed like Siim-Sander Vene. Everything is set for seeing the number of U22 minutes grow significantly once again this season.

My 5 predictions for 2011 is a post from: European Prospects
Follow me on Twitter to get even more updates or become a fan on Facebook

The non-qualification of Enes Kanter
The Turkish Center was considered the most dominating player in Europe for the next years after his stellar performances in the different Youth Championships over the last years. But 2010 marked a serious stop in his progress as he began the 2009/2010 season by travelling through the United States in order to find the right High School and finally got declared ineligible this fall to play in the NCAA. Instead of being a major factor in the Euroleague, Kanter is sitting  on the bench and watching some youngsters playing Basketball instead of fighting versus grown-up men. I hope that he finds his way back to the court soon, no matter where. But seeing such a talent wasting his time in the hazardous process of getting a College eligibility instead of battling in the paint versus Jonas Valanciunas is kind of heartbreaking.

The confirmation of Jonas Valanciunas
Talking about 1992 born inside players, Jonas Valanciunas shows already how good he can be. With the addition of the legendary Sarunas Jasikevicius, he has now the perfect PG to play the Pick and Roll during the miraculous qualification for the Top16. (wow, I just heard that Jasikevicius left) Valanciunas led the Lithuanian U18 National Team to a dominating Gold Medal this summer and is set (as we predicted) to become already a good factor on the Lithuanian Senior National team to play the Eurobasket 2011.

The first ever U17 World Championship
It was a new event in the calendar but it was highly interesting despite the limited level of some of the participants. It featured a super-skilled United States team that won the Gold Medal in the sauna of Hamburg and a Polish U17 National Team that gave them a great fight after having survived against Lithuania in one of the better games I have seen this year. The Baltic team that came to Germany without their top player but managed to show that heart and fight are huge values in Basketball. Finally, Canada and their high-flying youngster Andrew Wiggins raised some eyebrows as well and they finally earned a deserved Bronze Medal.

Ricky Rubio winning the Euroleague
In general, we don’t speak a lot about drafted players here at EuropeanProspects but it has to be mentioned that Ricky Rubio won the Euroleague in 2010 by playing a major factor on the best team in Europe. Rubio has made the transition from being a factor at a medium-size program to the top level in Europe without any major problems and he is an uncontested starter in the ACB for the major favorite in any competition in Europe. All this at only 20 years of age is extremely impressive, even if his World Championship was a bit disappointing this summer. But the expectations are always very high when he enters the court despite his still young age.

The Golden “Silver-Generation” from Poland
After decades of defeats and relegations, Poland has won again a Medal in Men’s Youth Basketball. The fantastic generation of the 1993 born players earned the Silver Medal at the U17 World Championship this summer. A rare combination of talented youngsters with good size, athletic abilities, deadly shooters, role players and a stunning coach brought them to play fantastic basketball this summer in Hamburg and be my personal Highlight of the year. The Polish press got excited and even had several journalists making the trip to Germany to follow a few youngsters only underlines their newly gained Star-status in the Red-and-White Basketball scene. And there is more to come with a U18 European Championship organized in… Poland next summer.

Most read Articles

Here is a quick list of the most-read articles of the Year 2010. Surprisingly enough, one of them has been published more than 18 months ago. The list does not include the pages discussing the Generation Rankings or NCAA Recruitments.

1. Is Sweden becoming the new Eldorado for talent scouts?
2. JBBL/NBBL Top4: Player Review
3. Albert-Schweitzer Tournament 2010 participants
4. 2009 U16 European Championship report
5. Albert Schweitzer Tournament 2010: Team USA

There was one article that did not make the Top5 but that I want to mention because it generated a large discussion was this one: Which future for Spanish Basketball?

To all the readers, I wish you a very good 2011 and a lot of interesting basketball games to scout.

The Top5 events of 2010 is a post from: European Prospects
Follow me on Twitter to get even more updates or become a fan on Facebook

Here we go for a quick look at all the players to follow in the 2010/2011 edition of the 2nd highest club competition in European Basketball.

Banvit

The Turkish team from Banvit features some interesting players with the 1990 born guard Ibrahim Yildirim who sees some minutes as back-up.  He averages so far 2.8ppg over the first two games playing more than ten minutes per game. After an interesting performance in the Euroleague qualifiers, Safak Edge has a bit disappeared in the Turkish League games where he only sees about 5 minutes per game. The 1992 born guard can however erupt at every moment for some scoring of the bench.

Le Mans

If there would be Young Player Award in the Eurocup, one of the favorites would be the French guard Antoine Diot. The 1989 born PG is leading the French team with 6.8ppg, 2.8rpg and 3.5apg and plays more than 25 minutes per game. Henri Kahudi may get some limited minutes coming from the bench in certain games to give the team a defensive boost.

EWE Baskets Oldenburg

No prospects to follow.

UNICS Kazan

No prospects to follow.

Besiktas ColaTurka

No prospects to watch out for but there is Allen Iverson. Maybe that is worth a look as well.

Hemofarm Stada Vrsac

Another player who would be a consideration for the Eurocup Young Player of the year is the 1989 born Milan Macvan. The Serbian PF is the dominating player for Vrsac and may even go for a MVP trophy if his team is going far in the competition. In the Adriatic League, Macvan comes up with huge numbers so far with 19.9ppg (61.4% 2FGs – 45.5% 3FGs – 86.4% FTs), 6.6rpg, and 2.1apg. Danilo Andusic is seeing some interesting minutes as well as his three-point shooting is very welcome for Hemofarm. Other players to follow that may get some minutes during the season are Uros Petrovic and the 93 born Luka Mitrovic.

ASVEL

ASVEL Villeurbanne features some interesting young talent that you can follow in their opener versus BG Göttingen live on the Eurosport Player. After a slight injury in the beginning of the season, Paul Lacombe is now back for ASVEL while Leo Westermann has also recovered from his knee surgery. Bangaly Fofana is getting some good minutes in the paint while Edwin Jackson is struggling a bit with his shooting since the beginning of the season.

BG Göttingen

No prospects to follow.

BC Siauliai

Zygimantas Janavicius got loaned to BC Siauliai this season in order to earn some minutes. And the 1989 born PG plays currently about 17 minutes per game with 4.2ppg and 2.3apg on average. The 1991 born Osvaldas Matulionis is another interesting player for the Lithuanian team but he is currently not yet on his level from last season. Matulionis only plays 7 minutes per game after having averaged more than 7 points in the Baltic League in 2009/2010.

Buducnost Podgorica

The 1991 born inside player Bojan Dubljevic is the guy to follow with the Montenegrin participant. The 2m05 tall Niksic-native averages 5.9ppg, 2.7rpg and 0.6bpg so far in the Adriatic League. Another young players is the 1989 born Sead Sehovic who has 7.4ppg and 2.3rpg so far in the NBL. For Marko Mugosa, we have to wait probably another season until the 1993 born forward gets regular minutes on this level.

Gran Canaria

No prospects to follow.

Budivelnik Kiev

Denys Lukashov is the only player on the Ukrainian team that is worth mentioning. The 1989 born guard averages more than 17 minutes in the local Superleague where he makes 5.6ppg 2.2rpg and 2.2apg this season; numbers that are really down from his production from last season.

Aris Saloniki

Linos Chrysikopoulos is only seeing limited minutes with Aris so far this season except for the opener where several players were on strike for the Greek team. The 1992 born forward should be able to find his spot in the team rotation during the season with his versatility. Kostas Sloukas got loaned to Saloniki from Olympiakos and he may get some minutes later in the season once the PG has really integrated the team.

BC Azovmash

The player to watch for Azovmash is the 1992 born forward Vyacheslav Bobrov. However, he does not see a lot of minutes at the moment and will probably only play during the Garbage time. However, he is an interesting player as he has athleticism and skills to build upon. Bogdan Bayda is 1989 born guard who has doubled his stats since last season but plays still only a minor role with his 12 minutes per game in the local Superleague.

Cedevita Zagreb

Dino Butorac is seeing some limited minutes for the Croatian team in the beginning of the season. The 1990 born guard averages 3.5ppg in the 14 minutes he is on the court. Roko Rogic has not entered the court yet for Cedevita this season but may be a player to look at in the future.

Hapoel Gilboa

No prospects to follow.

Gasterra Flames Groningen

No prospects to follow.

Galatasaray Istanbul

No prospects to follow except Melih Mahmutoglu who gets some garbage time minutes.

NGC Cantu

No prospects to follow.

Panellinios

No prospects to follow.

ASEFA Estudiantes Madrid

The years go by and Jayson Granger is still among the group of prospects. The 1989 born Uruguayan-Italian plays nearly 20 minutes per game for the Spanish teams and averages 7.0ppg. The combo-guard does an excellent job attacking the basket. Jaime Fernandez represents the next generation for Estudiantes as the 1993 born guard only sees some garbage minutes at the moment.

PAOK Saloniki

No prospects to follow.

Benetton Treviso

Benetton Treviso has started slowly into the season but it gets some scoring from its prospects. Donatas Motiejunas has so far averaged 10.0ppg but only 2.0rpg in the first five games of the Italian League. 1992 born Alessandro Gentile comes up with 5.5ppg in just 13.8 minutes on the court while the Polish Jakub  Wojciechowski does not see the floor that much after his surprising performances in the Euroleague qualification rounds.

Chorale de Roanne

Alexis Tanghe sees so far only limited minutes as a back-up PF for Chorale de Roanne in the French league. He averages however 3.0ppg in the 8 minutes he spends on the court.

Hapoel Jerusalem

No prospects to follow.

VEF Riga

Dairis Bertans is among the scoring leaders for VEF Riga this season. The athletic guard averages 12.0ppg and 3.8apg in the Baltic League while his numbers are more limited in the VTB League. With the arrival of a new US-import, his minutes on the court could go down in the Eurocup though. Martins Laksa is a 1990 born player who sees some garbage minutes this season.

CEZ Nymburk

No prospects to follow.

Cajasol Sevilla

One of the most promising players of this year’s edition of the Eurocup is the Czech guard Tomas Satoransky. With his excellent height and athletic abilities, Satoransky sees good back-up minutes on the PG position for the Spanish team and averages 5.4ppg so far. He gets some support by the 1991 born forward Joan Sastre who gets some minutes as well in a role a scorer on the wing.

Krasnye Krylia

No prospects to follow.

Pepsi Caserta

No prospects to follow.

Anwil Wloclawek

No prospects to follow.

ALBA Berlin

No prospects to follow.

EuroCup 2010/2011: Players to follow is a post from: European Prospects
Follow me on Twitter to get even more updates or become a fan on Facebook

The most active College on the European market this summer was Gonzaga. After having brought in Elias Harris last summer with the success that we could see this season, the coaching staff around Mark Few did again a great job by signing two U18 National Team players in Mathis Keita and Mathis Mönninghoff. Both players will most likely have an immediate impact for the WCC team. Mönninghoff brings the necessary threat from behind the three-point line, good defense and basketball understanding while Keita will probably do some damage on NCAA level when attacking the gaps that the defense gives him. He will also help to create good positions for Harris as the defense needs to collapse on the drives of the French guard.

After having played a bit surprisingly the Nike Hoop Summit in 2008, the Norwegian guard Torgrim Sommerfeldt went through several injuries that kept him away from the court over months. He is now back and has signed with the small College of Manhattan in order to find back his previous sensations. Being born in 1989, he will be among the oldest freshman in the country and will certainly use his experience in order to be a major factor right from the start in the MAAC. He has been considered by Wake Forest after his Hoop Summit performance but this did not happen because of his injuries. Sommerfeldt wants to show now that he has the level to compete on US College level and re-launch his career a bit later than thought.

Probably the biggest move out of Europe this summer was the signing of Niels Giffey by the University of Connecticut. The versatile forward combines an excellent size with great basketball skills and an improving shooting touch. Giffey led his team to the national U19 championship in Germany 1 year ago and can be used on multiple positions. He is certainly one of the recruits with the best basketball understanding and he should not struggle to become a very important part of the UConn rotation right from Day 1. Having been coached by former Tar Heel Henrik Rödl, Giffey chose the way through an US College despite having offers and potential impact on the German professional level for the current season. His international experience is above average and with his athletic abilities, he should not have a problem to adapt to the North-American style of play.

The story of the summer though is the qualification of Enes Kanter to be eligible to play for the University of Kentucky. After the Turkish phenomenon has come to the United States last summer travelling from school to school in order to get ready for the NCAA, the summer has been filled with accusations coming from different directions on his amateur status in the time back at Fenerbahce Ülker Istanbul. While on the one side, you have the Turkish team claiming that Kanter got paid when playing for their professional team, Kanter’s entourage is telling the opposite. The file is currently at the NCAA and waiting for decision. After the changes undergone by the NCAA to stop the suspensions of players that just played as an amateur in a professional team (Lucca Staiger, Deniz Kilicli), this case is more complicated because of the direct involvement of his original team saying that they paid the PF/C and it seems that every side tries to push its interest in a very harsh and not always fair-play way. We will see how this will end. Check out this article to get a nice outline of the different parties involved and their respective interests in the Kanter case.

Poland is a hot recruiting stop at the moment as several Colleges are showing interest in their highly talented 1993 generation. Tommy Lloyd from Gonzaga told in a recent interview that he just came back from Poland while we heard as well that the University of Cincinnati is currently in the Eastern European country to recruit. The main targets are of course Mateusz Ponitka, Tomasz Gielo and Przemyslaw Karnowski but a player like Piotr Niedzwiedzki is also getting some interest. All of these prospects are members of the 2012 Class and will draw more and more interest over the next months because of the limited number of good big men in the US for that class.

Another major College Basketball target in Europe these days is Nemanja Bezbradica. The Serbian big guy, who was wrongly considered as a member of the 2011 class by several news outlets (including Europeanprospects.com), is being followed by many big names in College basketball as a member of the potential 2012 class. The biggest name chasing him is of course the University of Kentucky that was particularly impressed with him after scouting Bezbradica during the U17 World Championship this summer in Hamburg.

Two Australians with European background, Igor Hadziomerovic and Anthony Drmic travelled the US over the last days to do some College Recruiting visits. While Hadziomerovic, who is of Serbian descent, shared the names of the colleges he checked out, it was more difficult to know the names for the Croatian Drmic. Hadziomerovic visited Seton Hall, Portland and Boise State but he is not sure yet about his decision. Drmic was also visiting Boise State and Portland but went as well to see Valparaiso and the Australian hot spot St. Mary’s.

Follow all European College Recruiting on our NCAA Recruiting Page. Check here the names of all Europeans recruited in the Class of 2010. Check here the previews on the Class of 2011. Find out which Europeans currently in the USA are being recruited.

An update on NCAA recruiting in Europe is a post from: European Prospects
Follow me on Twitter to get even more updates or become a fan on Facebook

The Bulgarian team of Lukoil Academic will face Aris Salonika at 17h00 CET. The team from Sofia features one of the most promising players from Bulgaria in Bozhidar Avramov who seems to get major minutes with his new team. In the last test against Lokomotiv Kuban, Avramov finished with 7pts and 8asts to lead Lukoil Academic to a 79-64 win over the Russian team. On the Greek side, the main player to follow is of course the 1992 born forward Linos Chrysikopoulos. It will be interesting to see how big is his impact on the team of head coach Sharon Drucker as he saw regular minutes during the pre-season.

Watch Lukoil versus Aris live on the Eurosport Player by subscribing to the monthly offer for only 4.90€ or take the one year offer for only 39.90€.

In yesterday’s action, several young players were at their ease with Alessandro Gentile scoring 11pts and giving 4asts while Donatas Motiejunas had 8pts and 3rebs. The nice surprise for Benetton though was the Polish big guy Jakub Wojciechowski who had 12pts and 6rebs in the win over Apoel Nicosia. Wojciechowski is a 1990 born 2m10 tall forward who is quite athletic but not very physical. He has been at the Adidas Eurocamp several times already.

Eurocup Qualification Round 2010: Watch it LIVE is a post from: European Prospects
Follow me on Twitter to get even more updates or become a fan on Facebook

For the calculation, I added the minutes of all players of a specific birth year of one league. Out of this, I could find a percentage of the minutes of a specific age group compared to all the minutes played that season. This gave me the possibility to calculate the average age group of all the minutes played in the specific league during the season 2009-2010.

I did this calculation for the following leagues: ACB, Adriatic League, Italian Lega, French ProA, Baltic League, Bundesliga and ESAKE. The Turkish League website did not gave me the possibility to copy/paste the stats to Excel for the calculations.

Average Age of Minute played

1. Baltic League 84.6153
2. Adriatic League 83.7551
3. Bundesliga 82.5639
4. France ProA 82.2321
5. ACB 81.8592
6. ESAKE 81.6075
7. Italy Lega 81.4895

The result is not a major surprise as both the Baltic and the Adriatic League are dominating this first ranking. On average, a minute in the Baltic League has been played by a player born in the second half of 1984. The Adriatic League comes second with the minute being played on average by a player born in the second half of 1983. More surprising may be the 3rd place of the German Bundesliga as the league is not known for giving a lot of minutes to young players. The oldest league in this Ranking is the Italian Lega with the average minute being played by a player born in 1981.

Average Age of Minute played by locals

1. Baltic League 84.8557
2. Adriatic League 83.9255
3. Bundesliga 83.8473
4. France ProA 83.3592
5. ACB 82.2580
6. ESAKE 81.9134
7. Italy Lega 81.4377

No difference for the minutes played by locals (Lithuanians, Latvians or Estonians in the Baltic League and Slovenians, Serbians, Croats, Bosnians, Macedonians, Montenegrins in the Adriatic League) where the Baltic League is still at the top followed by the Adriatic League. The Bundesliga comes third and can be considered therefore as third most youth-friendly league in Europe. However, this does not display the minutes played by young players compared to all the minutes played in the League.

Local U22 Minutes versus total Minutes

1. Baltic League 23.45%
2. Adriatic League 18.93%
3. France ProA 9.83%
4. Bundesliga 5.06%
5. ACB 4.31%
6. ESAKE 3.53%
7. Italy Lega 3.05%

This Ranking shows the minutes played by prospects born in 1988 and younger compared to the total minutes (locals+foreigners) of the league. Here, the dominance of the Baltic and the Adriatic League is even bigger compared to the rest of Europe. France comes as third with nearly 10% of the minutes given to local U22 players in 2009-2010. Bundesliga comes at the top of the rest with 5% while Italy is the worst league in giving minutes to U22 players.

Local U22 Minutes versus local Minutes

1. Baltic League 29.96%
2. Bundesliga 27.30%
3. France ProA 26.45%
4. Adriatic League 22.51%
5. ACB 12.89%
6. Italy Lega 10.58%
7. ESAKE 7.93%

When comparing the minutes of local prospects to the minutes given to local players in total, the results are a bit surprising. Even if the Baltic League is still at the first place, the second spot of the Bundesliga may be a surprise. This is explained by the limited minutes given to locals in total (the lowest of all the leagues with 18.52% of all minutes) but the large presence of talented players in the age group of Under 22 (Tim Ohlbrecht, Robin Benzing, Tibor Pleiss,…). France comes as a third with 26.45% of local minutes given to U22 players while the Adriatic League comes only as fourth.

Youngest Teams per minute played

1. FMP Belgrade (Adriatic League) 87.6024
2. Ventspils (Baltic League) 86.8143
3. Nevezis (Baltic League) 86.1094
4. VEF Riga (Baltic League) 85.3713
5. ratiopharm Ulm (Bundesliga) 85.2331
6. Cibona Zagreb (Adriatic League) 85.1313
7. Radnicki (Adriatic League) 85.0537
8. Buducnost Podgorica (Adriatic League) 84.9837
9. Crvena Zvezda (Adriatic League) 84.80464
10. Lietuvos Rytas (Baltic League) 84.7264

Baltic League: the youngest league in Europe is a post from: European Prospects
Follow me on Twitter to get even more updates or become a fan on Facebook