European Prospects

The French Trophée du Futur started yesterday in Poitiers with the quarter-finals. Here we go for a quick round-up of the action.

The opening game between Cholet Basket and JDA Dijon was closer than expected as the regular season winners from Cholet could only make the decisive break in the last quarter. Christophe Leonard had a great first half but there was not much coming in the 2nd twenty minutes but he still finished top scorer of the game with 18pts and a great 4/4 from behind the arc. He got got some support by Erwan André who was close to a double-double with 11pts and 9rebs while Center prospect Rudy Gobert, who gained 15cm in one year, finished with 4pts, 6rebs and 2blks in 13 minutes on the floor. For Dijon, Alexis Tanghe was the leader with 12pts and 4rebs while Lens Aboudou had 15pts, 5rebs but 8tos.

The second quarter final between ASVEL and Le Mans was even closer as the game went to overtime despite the absence of the three top scorers of Le Mans because of injuries or presence with the professional team that plays the French playoffs. So it was Thomas Ceci who stepped up with 20pts and 9rebs for Le Mans while Negueba Samake had 15pts, 6rebs and 2blks. He had an interesting match-up with the NBA Draft early entrant Bangaly Fofana who finished with 17pts, 6rebs and 3blks. But the player of the game for Lyon-Villeurbanne was Paul Lacombe. The guard who saw minutes with the Pro team this season already finished with nearly a quadruple-double as he had 19pts, 9rebs, 7asts and 7stls.

Paris-Levallois advanced to the next round by beating Gravelines-Dunkerque behind excellent three-point shooting in the first half. Benjamin Vauquois finished with 19pts and 5stls for the team from the capital where Malela Mutuale had 13pts, 3rebs, 6asts but shot a horrible 3/12 from the free-throw line. On the other side, a great game by Maxime Courby who had 19pts, 17rebs and 2asts was not enough as the usual top scorer Jonathan Rousselle was of with 2/9 from behind the arc. He had however 17pts still and 5asts but turned the ball over 5 times as well.

The last quarter-final of the day saw the hosts from Poitiers battle hard to lose finally by only 6 points against Le Havre. Mikael Var did what he could with 14pts and 12rebs while Jeffrey Dalmat and Ribar Baikoua both had 18pts. But on the side of Le Havre, NBA Draft Early Entrant Ousmane Camara dominated with 20pts (8/11), 7rebs and 3blks while the elegant Fabien Paschal had 12pts and 9rebs (6 offensive boards).

The semi-finals will be played today with the following games:

• 18h00 Cholet Basket – ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne
• 20h30 Paris-Levallois – Le Havre

The games will be available through LIVE stream on europeanprospects.com thanks to the organizers from Poitiers who offer this exceptional video coverage of the event.

In a little ceremony, the French League also presented the All-League-1st-Team during the event. Here are the five players that got honored.

• PG – Jonathan Rousselle (Gravelines-Dunkerque): 17.0ppg (61.0% FG), 4.6rpg, 5.3apg, 3.1spg
• SG – Paul Lacombe (ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne): 14.5ppg, 6.7rpg, 5.0apg, 4.1spg
• SF – Christophe Leonard (Cholet Basket): 16.1ppg (64.0% FG), 5.9rpg, 3.2apg
• PF – Babacar Niang (Le Mans SB): 17.0ppg (58.0% FG), 7.0rpg
• C – Ferdinand Prenom (JDA Dijon): 18.5ppg (69.0% FG), 8.7rpg