Mega Vizura (U-20) -at the pic- and Canarias Basketball Academy (U-18) became the first winners of the Rinus de Jong Invitational tournament, held this week in Hertogenbosh (Netherlands). Serbians and spaniards -even most of their players are not of that country- earned the titles of an event with intriguing prospects: dutch Shane Hammink ('94), montenegrin Nikola Ivanovic ('94) -invited by Mega Vizura-, serbian Vasilije Micic ('94), czech Martin Kriz ('93), slovakian Boris Bojanovsky ('93) from CBA, serbian-turkish Dusan Cantekin ('90),...

 

In the U-20 competition Mega Vizura beat Canarias Basketball Academy (CBA) in the big final (80-77). 2.08 center Stevan Jelovac ('89) tallied 26 points to lead the win and earn also the Best Defensive Player Award. His teammate Vasilije Micic ('94) -#5 Eurohopes'94- got the Rising Star Award, while guard Pavle Reljic ('93), also from Mega, won the 3 pointers contest. In the game for the third place dutchmen of Eiffeltowers Den Bosch beat belgiums of Soba Antwerpen (64-76).

 

And what about U-18? Canarias Basketball Academy beat Netherlands NT (89-75). USK Future Stars of Prague ended third after winning Telekom Bonn (73-60).

 

One of th big names of the tournament was guard Paul Candiff ('93), from WCAA Giants and playing for U-18 dutch NT. In the last game of the group stage they beat Telekom Bonn (78-114) earning a spot for the final behind a crazy 50 points contest of Candiff (5/9 twos, 12/16 threes and 4/5 FT). In the final the guard tallied 18, the best dutch scorer also. Some days ago the same player won the Altia X-Mas Tournament 3 pointers contest, at Kortrijk (Belgium).  

 

Photo: Christian Aarts