European Prospects

After a long night at the restaurant (thank you Germano) and a sightseeing and foodtasting trip through Rome yesterday, I arrived save back home only late so that the report on the Final day of the tournament is only online now.

• The opening game of the last day was another overtime story as Benetton Fribourg finally lost against Lottomatica Roma so that the Swiss finished on the last place of the tournament. It was really a regret for them as Stefan Petkovic missed twice the free-throws to win the game in regular and in overtime. He finished the game however with his tournament high of 28pts and merited in my eyes an All-Tournament team spot as best PG. For the Romans, Alessandro di Pasquale scored 16pts.
• In a close game for the 5th place, it were the Italians from Siena that finally beat a talented but result-wise disappointing CSKA Moscow team. Diego Monaldi lead the squad for Montepaschi with 17pts while Alexander Tikhonin had not a great game for the Russians but finished however with 12pts and 7rebs. He got some support by sharp-shooter Artem Komolov late in the game but it was not enough.
• The hosts of Stella Azzurra had the merit for winning the 3rd place against a FMP Belgrade team that played without Miljenovic and Bezbradica and looked really messy. The hosts were lead by Bruno Ondo Mengue who played huge 40 minutes in the final game of the tournament and finished with 18pts, 7rebs and 11 drawn fouls. Ojars Silins scored 15 despite being not that lucky in his shots but the Latvian player managed to finish the tournament as the Top Scorer. 1993 born Stefan Popovski-Turanjanin was the top scorer for FMP with 14pts and 12rebs.
• Zalgiris Kaunas finally totally dominated the final and beat Benetton Treviso by 24 points. Dovydas Redikas played a great first half where he scored all of his 15pts while tournament MVP Rolandas Jakstas finished with 11pts and 14rebs. The Lithuanians were very impressive throughout the whole tournament and they even missed their normal starting PG Vytenis Cizauskas because of an injury. Benetton Treviso was lead by Armin Mazic who finished with 18pts, 7rebs, 5asts and 3stls but it was not enough to put the Lithuanians in problems more than one quarter.
• The All-Tournament team selected by the organization was the following:
  PG: Diego Monaldi (Montepaschi)
  SG: Dovydas Redikas (Zalgiris)
  SF: Alessandro Gentile (Benetton Treviso)
  PF: Nikola Siladi (FMP Belgrade)
  C: Andrey Loginov (CSKA Moscow)
• MVP of the tournament: Rolandas Jakstas (Zalgiris Kaunas)
• My personal All-tournament team would have been a little different though. In my eyes, the best PG of the tournament was, despite finishing at the last place, Stefan Petkovic from Benetton Fribourg. Additionally, I would have chosen Alexander Tikhonin instead of Andrey Loginov from the CSKA team as inside presence while Nikola Siladi did not show anything special during the game where his inside team mate Nemanja Bezbradica was out with an injury. So this would have ended up in the following All-Tournament team for europeanprospects.com
  PG: Stefan Petkovic (Benetton Fribourg)
  SG: Dovydas Redikas (Zalgiris)
  SF: Alessandro Gentile (Benetton Treviso)
  PF: Alexander Tikhonin (CSKA Moscow)
  C: Nemanja Bezbradica (FMP Belgrade)
• The biggest regret of the tournament though were the number of injured players that either missed the full tournament or did have to quit during the days in Rome. If you consider the major players that were not present through all the games because of that, you would have a tremendous All-Tournament team: Vytenis Cizauskas, Nenad Miljenovic, Alessandro Gentile, Tomaso Ingrosso, Nemanja Bezbradica.
• Game scenes from Benetton Treviso versus CSKA Moscow
  
• Game scenes from Stella Azzurra – FMP Belgrade
  
• Game scenes from Zalgiris Kaunas – Benetton Treviso
  
• The tournament report including the player Scoutings will be online in a few days. Have a happy new year and see you in 2010.