European Prospects

With the Albert Schweitzer Tournament 2010 in the books, it is time to go for an update on our Generation Rankings. Even if several major players were not present, something which can also happen at European Championships because of injuries, the results of the tournament will be taken into account for our rankings. The main changes occurred of course in the 1992 born ranking but the presence of the German U17 team impacted the 1993 born ranking too.

One of the main conclusions to be taken from this tournament is that the presence or not-presence of major players has a big impact on the results of the teams. Imagine Turkey with Enes Kanter, it would have been a whole different team. Spain missed also three key players but they reached however a 5th place which did not really showed their level. They have been a candidate for a Medal spot and will certainly be one of the major medal candidates at the U18 European Championship this summer. The excellent team basketball practiced by the Spanish team, together with remaining undefeated against a European team results in one of the biggest movers in our ranking. Spain moves up from position 5 to position 2 in the 1992 born ranking.

Turkey played a so-so tournament considering that they missed Enes Kanter, their major inside force. This showed how dependant they are from their big guy and that the guards are not on the level to overcome this absence. This is why they have been downgraded to the third place considering that with Kanter in the lineup, they are a Top3 candidate in Europe at the U18 level.

The third placed France has been the biggest loser of the ranking because of their disappointing 13th place in the Albert Schweitzer Tournament.  Despite playing with Leo Westermann and Vincent Pourchot and starting very strong into the tournament, it were mainly the two losses against Israel and Greece in the second round of the tournament that are at the base of this fall in the ranking. Adding the fact that Westermann will most likely miss this summer’s European Championship, the French team is right now not among the top team of this age group anymore.

Germany showed that their 92 generation is among the best in Europe and that’s why we upgraded them to the fourth place in our ranking. They were however one of the few teams in Mannheim that played without major absences but they brought back good results so that this upwards move is necessary.

The rest of the participating European nations remained at their previous spots while nations like Serbia or the Czech Republic that were not present in Mannheim saw their ranking updated due to the moves in the top places.

Find here the updated 1992 born ranking.

1. Lithuania (-)
2. Spain (+3)
3. Turkey (-1)
4. Germany (+3)
5. Serbia (-1)
6. Czech Republic (-2)
7. France (-4)
8. Italy (-)
9. Russia (-)
10. Croatia (-)
11. Ukraine (-)
12. Greece (-)
13. Sweden (-)
14. Latvia (-)
15. Montenegro (-)

For the 1993 ranking, the only participant at the Albert Schweitzer Tournament that had an impact was the German U17 National Team. With their excellent third place, an upgrade was necessary as they were only at the 12th spot in our previous edition. We consider that this result gives them a positioning at number 8 right now with the rest of the top seeds not changing. Check here the updated 1993 born ranking.