With the Reebok Eurocamp starting off in just 10 days, I will give an update on those players that did not get invited or won’t be present in Treviso for several reasons. I will start with the German PF Tim Ohlbrecht.

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• Interview with Ryan Richards during the Nike International Junior Tournament.
• A few plays from Nicolo Melli during the Legadue playoffs
• Check out the main French prospects of the ProA in Video
• German U18 NT coach Kay Blümel selected 20 players for the preparation phase of the U18 European Championship this summer
• The 9th Meneghin - De Silvestro International Basketball Tournament in Domegge (Italy) will feature the following U20 National teams from 18th to 20th July: Italy, Greece, Slovenia and Georgia
• PAOK Salonici qualified for the Final of the Greek Youth Championships behind the huge scoring efforts of Charis Giannopoulos
• This weekend, the Cadets tournament in Riom faces off the U16 National teams of France, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Latvia. Find here the French and the Slovenian rosters.
• The Adidas Nations Africa team will play the Douai tournament this year. Check here for some names that will probably be on the roster

The rumors have been around for a few days now, today it is official. Robin Benzing will play for Michigan in the NCAA. The 2m10 tall German forward from TV Langen will continue his basketball education in Ann Arbor.

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While the list have not been published on the official website of the camp, the usually well informed sources have the names already online for a few days. Here are the names then again with a few comments from my side.

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In 10 days, the NBBL Top4 tournament will be played in Langen. On the 31st of May and the 1st of June, the German U19 champion will be decided. And the first thing to remember is that three of the four semi-finalist have already been at this stage of the competition last season. But let’s check the teams in general.

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Today, the French press announced the MVP trophies of the last season for the ProA and ProB league. And the least one could say is that these votings have been dominated by young prospects.

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The NCAA is still a very popular destination for some of Germany’s best prospects. And despite some problems with the NCAA regularization last year (you surely remember the case of Lucca Staiger and Fabian Böke who got suspended for one season), there is still a number of players that want to join the College league.

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The list of the European early-entrants has been published a few days ago, so I took the time to go over it and give you my opinion, who will get drafted, who will take his name out again and other thoughts on the list.

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The last part of my International Junior Tournament report talks about the two finalists: FC Barcelona and FMP Zeleznik Belgrade. FMP has reached with this win the deserved European crown for Junior teams and it does not look like any other European club team is at their level right now.

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The next part of the Junior Tournament Report talks about the two Lithuanian teams of Lietuvos Rytas and Zalgiris Kaunas. Both were very different. While Lietuvos Rytas’ game was based a lot on their guards play, the Zalgiris team lived essentially from their inside guys.

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After the first part of my recap of the Nike International Junior Tournament yesterday, here is the second part of the report which contains player profiles of Cibona Zagreb and Real Madrid junior teams.

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The Nike International Junior Tournament 2008 is history and the winner is coming from Serbia. Without any big surprise, the 2008 edition goes to FMP Zeleznik who can consider themselves now as the top European youth program after having won all the major tournaments this season.

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I have spent this 1st of May in the Palalido in Milano, Italy to follow the final day of the 25th edition of the Victor Rho Tournament. Unfortunately, this year’s edition did not feature the same amount of talent than the years before because of the International Junior Tournament played in Madrid. For this reason, Real Madrid and FMP were only present with their reserve players in Rho and some smaller teams took profit of this situation.

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• The Euroleague has announced the winner of its Rising Star Trophy: it is Danilo Gallinari. I thought it would be Nikola Pekovic though but the selection committee took the Italian.
• Today starts the Victor Rho tournament for U18 and U14 teams. All infos can be found on the official website. A few names from the announced rosters: Dejan Musli, B.J. Mullens, Nikola Mirotic, Mirza Sarajlija, Mario Delas, Nemanja Jaramaz. Europeanprospects will be in Rho for the Final Day of the competition.
• The following 8 teams will play the Nike International Junior Tournament during the Final Four in Madrid: FMP Zeleznik (Hospitalet and Belgrade Tournament winner), FC Barcelona (Hospitalet runner-up), Lietuvos Rytas (Belgrade runner-up), Cibona Zagreb (Belgrade 3rd placed), Zalgiris Kaunas (title holder), Real Madrid (host), Maccabi Tel Aviv (Wildcard) and Red Star Belgrade (Wildcard. Europeanprospects will be present in Madrid.
• Vladimir Stimac from Valmiera got elected MVP of this year’s edition of the Baltic League. A very surprising title for the young Serbian Center.
• German prospect Robin Benzing, who is actually playing for Langen in ProA will most likely join the NCAA next season despite risking a one year suspension for breaching the NCAA rules like it happened to Lucca Staiger and Fabian Boeke this year. He is in close contact to sign with Fresno State.

A little bit later than usual, but here it is again: the European Prospects Mock Draft Review. After adapting the formula to calculate a bit in order to take into account the update dates of the different mocks, here we are with the results as of today.

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This weekend were played the Slovenian U19 championships in a Final Four modus in the hometown of the Mario Primorac Basketball school. The former player of ALBA Berlin reached as coach the semi-finals of the championship with his team but lost there against KK Parklji. The Finals have been dominated by KD Geoplin Slovan.

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This Friday, three very interesting French prospects have been on the court together in Pau in the league game between Pau-Orthez and Cholet. I speak of course of Ludo Vaty, Nando de Colo and Rodrigue Beaubois. Here is a short recap of the games of the three players.

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The German 2nd and 3rd leagues are featuring some very interesting young players. The BBL Bundesliga is dominated by foreigners, so a lot of youth players chose to player for a second or third division team in order to get some playing time and gain experience. Now, the league elected their most rewarding youngsters and here are the results.

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Virtually unknown on the European Basketball scene before last weekend, the Norwegian Torgrim Sommerfeldt was probably the biggest surprise in the World roster of the Nike Hoop Summit. I checked with him after his return to Norway how did he ended up in Portland and what his future plans are.

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While not having seen the game (if anyone wants to send me a copy would be nice ), I had to take a look at what the other websites are saying about the Europeans present in Portland. I found a nice article from SI.com taking a look particularly at Serge Ibaka and Alexis Ajinca.

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