Second day of the U-16 Bellegarde tournament and second day with the crowd attending the Salle Omnisport Marcel Berthet watching another big performance of turkish James Metecan Birsen ('95) -at the pic-, in this case leading his national team to the win against hosts in a packed gym with Eurohopes staff on live. Squad coached by Taner Gunay added its second win in a row, becoming the only unbeaten team after two journeys. Birsen collected a great double-double (22 points and 12 rebounds), being unstoppable for french, where their leader Damien Inglis ('95) had 16 points and 9 boards. In the other contest Czech Republic beat Greece with another good job of Martin Peterka ('95) with 14 points and 7 boards, while at the losing effort the best was Tasos Spyropoulos ('95) with a double-double: 13 points and 12 boards. Today, the last two games: Turkey - Czech Republic and France - Greece. Let's check what happened during yesterday afternoon.
-Czech Republic 81 Greece 68: In a game not so physical as against french Czech Republic add its first win in the tournament, finding more espaces for their players. With Peterka playing inside and outside and Radovan Koulil ('95) -12 points, 4 assists and 1 steal- hurting with his skills and driving his teammates, czechs dominated during many minutes. 2.04 Prokop Slanina ('95) made a good job on both sides, finishing with 9 points, 10 boards and 3 assists, with a great defense against Giorgios Diamantakos ('95) -8 points, 2 assists and 1 rebound-, erratic on his game. Even he made 6 turnovers Spyropoulos shined at the losing effort, while youngster Dimitris Stamatis ('96) sent good sensations with 8 points, 3 rebounds and 3 steals. Is a point-guard who plays with much intensity, good shooting range and good capacity to finish lay-ups on traffic.
-Turkey 61 France 55: Two good teams, the best of the tournament at this point, played a tied contest infront a packed gym. They didn't make an amazing show, but some players showed great details of their quality. Rising star Birsen led the win, scoring 12 points in the first quarter (20-14), even Inglis & Co. didn't give up, with the power-forward nailing 6 points at that moment. Birsen hurt on many positions, scoring top-level baskets in clutch time, but also receiving the help of his teammates. Cedi Osman ('95), with 13 points, 2 steals and 1 rebound, was also key in some moments, while Kartal Ozmizrak ('95) added 10 points, 3 rebounds and 1 assist. Coach Taner Gunay gave the reins of the game to a lot of players, showing how important is to have a group with many pieces with capacity to decide, so they keep working for the U-16 European Championship of this summer. French prospects struggled at 3 points line, and for example Olivier Yao-delon ('95) made 1/9 from downtown. Eventhough he is a really interesting player who can score on many ways. Coach Tahar Assed-Liegeon played with many rotations. At 3-4 position Inglis and Paul Rigot ('95) -10 points and 4 boards- made a good job on offense and defense. At the point-guard Charly Pontens ('95) played better than the opener, ending with 7 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists. We kept another name in our mind: Romuald Moency ('95).
Standings: Turkey (2-0), France and Czech Republic (1-1) and Greece (0-2).
Photo: www.tbf.org.tr
