European Prospects

The different European Youth National Teams are in their preparation phase for the European Youth championships that will be played this summer. Here are some of the notes on the different teams as they have done so far.

• The Greek U20 team will get the support from Florida Gator Nick Calathes this summer in the U20 competition as he has reported in a FIBA Europe interview these days. the are also rumors that Kosta Koufos could join the team after the NBA Summer Leagues.
• One of the strongest U20 preparation tournaments will be played from the 16th to the 20th July in Luxembourg. The participating nations are France, Russia, Lithuania, Turkey, Spain and a U23 selection from Luxembourg. Spain has announced their preliminary roster for this tournament which includes also Victor Claver from Pamesa Valencia.
• An interesting U18 tournament will be played this weekend in Syros/Greece with Turkey, Russia, Bulgaria and Greece. The Turkish team will be nearly the same that played already last weekend in Douai.
• The Romanian U20 national team won a preparation tournament in Targu Mures, the location of the B-Division championship in the beginning of August. The team build around Titus Nicoara and Vlad Moldoveanu won its three games against Ireland, Macedonia and Bulgaria. Titus Nicoara earned the MVP trophy in this three days of action.
• Another interesting U20 preparation tournament will be played in the Italian city of Domegge with the participation of Greece, Slovenia, Italy and Georgia. The dates for this event are from the 18th July to the 20th July.
• The German U20 team around Robin Benzing and Elias Harris won its three games in a tournament in Poland this weekend. They beat the hosts twice and Croatia as well. The team of coach Emir Mutapcic will travel to Italy next weekend to play there against Russia, Israel and Italy.
• Finally, I wanted to mention a story that is a bit sad. 1987 born German PG Nicolai Simon could see his basketball career end at the tender age of 21 already. After having cracked the rotation of ALBA Berlin in the 2006/07 season, the former Urspring Academy member injures his back in November 2007 and suffers now from never ending back problems and did not see the court anymore since then.  Even if he does not think about a career end yet, Nicolai is doing everything to avoid this to happen. We wish him good luck as he was one of the most talented players of the German 1987 generation.