European Prospects

The final day in Douai was marked by the still very open possibilities for the final results.

• In the first game of the day, Canada managed to overcome a Lithuanian team that looked a bit tired after the five day effort. Donatas Motiejunas was once again not in his best day and did not look really motivated throughout the game. The Lithuanians stayed in the game behind the first half three pointers of Gediminas Orelikas but Canada and their 11 men rotation used the Lithuanians that aligned several different players than on Saturday. Mangisto Arop being out because of his knee injury, it was Kelly Olynyk that took over the game with his nice drives and good shooting from around the key and the three point line. He finished with 17pts, 7rebs, 4asts and 3stls. The top scorer for Canada though was sharp-shooter Laurent Rivard who nailed 8 out of his 13 attempts to score 20pts. Canada finally beat Lithuania 86-78.
• Puerto Rico continued to make good impression in the tournament as they defeated an Australian that still looks like having the most polished team play but some limits in terms of individualities. With the absence of Jorden Page, there is no real regular scoring impact coming from the guards while the inside players live more from their hustle than from individual class. Puerto Rico is getting pumped up by their aggressive guard duo Mike Rosario and Jio Fontan while Kevin “Josh Childress” Young was doing some damage inside with his athleticism and jumping timing.
• In the final game of the tournament, France had a chance to win it all but no could not handle the USA 2K Sports team in overtime. It was a magnificent back-door alley-oop against the 1-3-1 zone that the American coaching staff had prepared for the decisive play; and it worked. Andrew Albicy could not create the decisive play to give France the win on the buzzer. Christophe Leonard had a good second half to help France stay in a game where they did not really look good against the athletic US boys that were doing massive damage in the French paint fouling out 3 players.
• With the loss of France in the decisive game, the 1st place went finally to Canada that earned this spot in front of Puerto Rico and France. USA 2K Sports went fourth, while Lithuania took the 5th place just in front of Australia finishing last.
• The All-Tournament team has been the following:
  PG Andrew Albicy (France)
  SG Mike Rosario (Puerto Rico)
  SF Jordan McRae (USA)
  PF Kelly Olynyk (Canada)
  C Donatas Motiejunas (Lithuania)
  The Canadian forward and future Gonzaga Bulldog Kelly Olynyk won the MVP trophy of the tournament.
• If you are interested in getting game tape of the tournament, you can refer to Images B-Ball that recorded the whole tournament and DVDs of every game are available at their website.
• The game between Puerto Rico and Lithuania from Saturday may have another episode before the FIBA Committee during the next days. The word in Douai was that Puerto Rico wants the Lithuanian player disqualified on Saturday to be suspended for at least one game during the upcoming U19 World Championship. Even if they had 4 guys disqualified themselves, this would be much more of a problem for Lithuania as Donatas Motiejunas was the player that was the most heavily involved in the brawl. The opening game of the World Championship will additionally be Puerto Rico versus Lithuania
• In-detail scouting reports on the two European teams and more info on the 4 other teams will come online in the next days