European Prospects

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Türk Telekom Tournament 2011 about to start

February 3rd, 2011 · 5 Comments

The largest international U16 Tournament in Europe will start this Saturday in Gaziantep in Turkey. After Serbia won the tournament in 2010 behind the 16pts and 12rebs of Nikola Jankovic, we will take a look at who are the players and teams to follow in this year’s edition.

Group A features next to the hosts the teams from Russia, Germany, Romania, Ukraine and for the first time a squad coming from Puerto Rico. The Turkish team will of course be lead by Kenan Sipahi who made already his first appearances on the U16 level two years ago. The experienced PG will be supported by players like Metecan Birsen, Kartal Ozmirak, Mehmet Sanli or Dogukan Sanli who all were members of the winning team of the Iscar Tournament in December 2010. Turkey looks like the major favorite as their 95 generation is terrific.

For Romania, who comes in a bit as an unknown, the leaders will most likely be Mehmet Hortoglu and Andrei Ciordas. Both shined at the recent Balkan Games where they finished second behind the Turks. Germany comes with one of the tallest teams to Turkey as they feature players like Niklas Ney (2m05), Robyn Missa (2m06), Gavin Schilling (2m05) and Daniel Mayr (2m09) who are major factors on their roster. David Taylor is their best scorer in the back court together with PG Ismet Akpinar. The team coached by Harald Stein finished 3rd in Geneva in December by beating Italy and Spain.

Russia features some interesting players in Alexander Martynov and Konstantin Kulikov while Ukraine comes to Turkey with Vladlen Berezhnyy and Andrii Kharchynskyi as their most interesting prospects. Russia finished third in Iscar after beating Italy in the Bronze Medal game and should be able to qualify for the next round in this tournament as well.

When Germany might be the tallest, Puerto Rico is certainly among the smallest teams in the tournament as none of their players is taller than 1m98 in their announced roster.

Group B goes even more exotic with the participation of China and Iran. France looks like the major favorite on this side of the tournament as the French team has some excellent talent on its roster. Damien Inglis is of course the biggest name for the team of coach Tahar Assed-Liegeon but players like Charly Pontens, Paul Rigot or Olivier Yao-Delon should bring some points on the court. Bulgaria finished third at the Balkan games in December and have been lead by Vasil Stoimenov and Filip Kamenov. However, the team looks a bit short to play an important role in Turkey.

The player to follow for the Slovenian team is Luka Kokol. The guard from Parklji had already an important role on the U16 National Team last summer where he averaged 13.9ppg. With a year more of experience, he should be the team leader for his squad that reached the Final at the U16 tournament in Geneva in December.

China is a total mystery to me but according to their announced roster, they feature several double meters including a 1996 born 2m15 and a 1995 born 2m10 guy. At least they are big. Georgia should feature their Italian export Giga Janelidze who plays for Rimini but he is not mentioned in the announced roster on the tournament’s website. Finally, for Iran counts the same than for China: total mystery to me.

The years before, the games of the Turkish team were available as Live Streams on the tournament website. So far, we did not hear anything about similar treatment but be sure to check back here or on our Twitter account to get the latest info on the broadcasting situation of the tournament.

5 responses so far ↓

  • 1 BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site » Blog Archive » Türk Telekom tournament tips off in Turkey // Feb 6, 2011 at 2:05 pm

    […] always-excellent European Prospects naturally provides a top-notch preview of the tournament here, and highlights may be seen here. […]

  • 2 kaan // Feb 10, 2011 at 11:39 am

    chinise are terrific. 215cm player age 15!! and a great PG.. in upcoming decades they will be on tops sure like they did in olimpics…

  • 3 saman adam // Feb 12, 2011 at 1:16 pm

    final match is today between turkey and china at 17:00 CET. you can watch from this link:

    http://www.trt.net.tr/Canli/canli.aspx?kanal=TRTOKUL&slv=0

  • 4 tarode // Feb 14, 2011 at 11:59 am

    China wins. The 215cm tall youngster Zhou Qi(born in June 1996) ruled the game once again, who almost had a triple-double with 30 points/17 rebounds/8 blocks(a day before against Germany with 41pts/28rbs/15blks)!!!

    And this guy can even dribble the ball from backcourt to the front like a decent PG! OMG…

    Due to a Reporter, this Zhou Qi guy has a 230cm wingspan and was trained to play SF/PF in china. Crazy

  • 5 Türk Telekom Tournament 2011 about to start | Follow The Swarm // May 31, 2011 at 6:01 pm

    […] Read the rest here: Türk Telekom Tournament 2011 about to start […]

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