European Prospects

Here we go for the round-up of Day 3 of the FIBA Europe U18 European Championship of Division A in Metz/Hagondange. For the third day in a row, I made the short trip to Hagondange to follow this time 4 different teams than the two days before.

• The first game was probably the best one I have seen so far in the tournament and opposed Lithuania to Russia. Lithuania had a good start into the game with their highly aggressive back-court around Deividas Nazarovas, Mantas Kadzevicius and Augustas Peciukevicius. All of them found the necessary support in the paint from the even more impressive Jonas Valanciunas who was a beast in the paint in terms of positioning and explosiveness. Nobody could stop him inside and he finished the game with 20pts, 15rebs and 5 blocked shots. The Russian team needed some time to find in the game but behind the efforts of the very interesting Pavel Antipov (25pts and 9rebs), they found a way back in the game but it was not enough to prevent a Lithuanian win.
• The second game of the evening had less interest for most of the people so that it was not a surprise the Latvia and Greece faced each other in front of a nearly empty gym. But the game ended up to be a very interesting and intensive one as you had physically strong Greek guys against technically versatile Latvian. And it was a Greek win in the end, but it was Latvia that was advancing to the next round because of the point average. Martins Meiers was the top scorer for the Balts with 20pts, 12rebs, 3asts, 3stls and 2blks while Greece was led by sharpshooter Andreas Kanonidis who netted 9 out of 14 shots for 24 points. But in the end, it was Latvia that held the distance to the needed level.
• Today, there was less scouting and public interest in the gym as there were probably a maximum of 150 people at the games. The fact that France played in Metz may explain this. So no professional teams could be spotted in the arena neither some NCAA College teams.
• If you are interested in official game tape from the U18 European Championship, you should check the website of Images B-Ball where you order DVDs of every game of the tournament
• During the same time, the U20 European Championship is going on in Rhodos and I recommend you to check Heinnews for great behind the scenes reports and game analysis.