European Prospects

Today started the Nike International Junior Tournament in Paris. It is the eight edition of this prestigious event that features the most talented U18 Club Teams in Europe. This year, the teams in Paris had to qualify through four different tournaments and the organization gave out 3 other Wildcards next to the defending champion FMP Belgrade. Here we go for the round-up of the first day.

• The day started with the game between FMP and Benetton Treviso. The Italians came without their top prospect Alessandro Gentile and were immediately put under big pressure by the FMP defense that got a lot of steals and easy baskets in the first ten minutes. The Serbians lead already 31-11 after the first quarter so that I decided to move to the second gym to watch a different game. The Italians managed to somehow play close with FMP over the last 30 minutes and all the players saw their minutes. FMP had in their team also some invites like the Serbian U18 championship prospect from Zitko Bogdan Bogdanovic but also Luka Pajkovic and Danilo Toskovic from the Santa Monica High School. All three saw about twenty minutes and scored 15, 8 and 10 points respectively.

Benetton Treviso versus FMP Belgrade

• The second game of the day saw the Croats of KK Split face Unicaja Malaga from Spain. The Croats remained in the game until the last quarter but the fifth foul of Filip Najev was a hard hit for them as their rotation is however pretty limited. Toni Katic was not lucky with his shot but drew a lot fouls and was perfect from the FT line. The Danish Esben Reinholt had a nice game coming from the bench where he did a good job especially on defense against Rafa Freire. The Brazilian guard from Unicaja had a rough day with 12pts at 6/16 but 5 turnovers. Malick Fall did a great job in the paint being there like a wall. He was only credited for 2 blocked shots but the feeling was that he had more deflections. The other African player Deme Mambaye did a good job too and helped Unicaja to earn their first victory of the tournament.
• The next game was the closest one of the day as Union Olimpija beat the host from INSEP by 1 point. It was the Slovenian zone defense in the final minutes and the big shots from Djordje Micic (3/3 3pts) and Jan Span that cut the lead of the French in the last quarter. Bojan Radulovic had a great day with 21pts and 9rebs and the 4 shots he missed could have been in as well. PG Jan Span controlled the pace of the game and dished out 5 assists while on the French side the absence of a real PG hurt them. Mathis Keita scored 12pts but missed 7 long distance attempts and he never really could take over the game. Yannis Morin did his job in the paint and Livio Jean-Charles showed his talent but it was not enough to overcome Union Olimpija that had to play without one of their top prospects in Gezim Morina. Coach Bassin confirmed us that Morina will most likely not play tomorrow either but the Slovenian team showed today that they can win against a bigger opponent without him as long as the other players step up like they did today.

• The last game of the first day was played between Zalgiris Kaunas and Cajasol Sevilla. And after the first quarter, this match looked already decided as the Lithuanians led 21-7. A great team effort with Dovydas Redikas who had 19pts and 5stls and Tomas Lekunas finishing with 11pts, 3rebs, 3stls, 2asts and 1blk was at the origin of this dominating win. For the Spanish team, Brazilian Center Gabriel Darin finished with 21pts and 8rebs while Pape Amadou had 15pts, 10rebs and 4blks. Zalgiris had to play without Tauras Jogela as reported already on our Twitter account but saw the return from injury of Vytenis Cizauskas who had a good game with 11pts and 3asts in just 14 minutes of play.
• Tomorrow, the tournament will continues with the game between FMP and KK Split, Benetton and Unicaja, Union Olimpija and Zalgiris Kaunas and INSEP who is playing against Cajasol.