Maybe it's because we went to Riga (Latvia) to follow the U19 World Championship. Or maybe it's only because is the reality of the situation. But after watching the quarterfinals yesterday in Bilbao it's obvious to conclude that this tournament has a really lack of level. France-Italy (18.00h) and Russia-Spain (20.15h) are today's semifinals. Many scouts attending the event are disappointed about the level of the players they are watching. There is a group of them with huge talent (Mirotic, Fournier, Gentile, Melli) but no way. Let's see what happened yesterday.
Spain didn't show his best face and had troubles to beat Latvia (77-70). With Nikola Mirotic ('91) having a lot of problems to win the position inside the paint against Martin Meiers ('91) and Mareks Mejeris ('91) spaniards made it to the semifinals with Joan Sastre ('91) making the performance people expected from Mirotic. The small-forward of Cajasol Sevilla (ACB) nailed 27 points with 4/6 from downtown to lead the victory, a win that came in the last quarter after a 9-0 run. Joventut Badalona (ACB) PG Josep Franch ('91) scored 14 dishing 5 assists, while Mirotic, even he didn't play well, he collected a double-double (12 points and 13 rebounds). For latvians guard Janis Antrops ('91) ended with 15 and 5/10 from downtown. Ugis Pinete ('91) added 10 with 2/3 threes. Russia will face Spain in semifinals after his surprising win over Turkey (64-57), where Mr.Rebound Furkan Aldemir ('91) pulled down 23, scoring 13 points and puttng 1 block. But wasn't enough. Russian achivement arrived behind Dmitry Korshakov ('91), who finished with his first double-double in the event (15 points and 10 rebounds). The 20-7 run in the third quarter became one of the keys. The best russian in the tournament, Andrey Zubkov ('91), had 13 points and 3 rebounds. France earned another spot in the Top-4 after beating Germany (68-59), where San Diego (NCAA) 6'10'' Dennis Kramer ('91) battled in the last minutes with three bombs in a row. He finished as the best scorer at losing effort in only 9 minutes (16). Five french prospects scored in double-digits, with ASVEL point-guard Leo Westermann ('92) knocking out 19 with 4/6 behind the arc. Florida's Wilfried Yeguete ('91) had 13 and 6 boards. The rival of french kids in the semifinals will be Italy. With Alessandro Gentile ('92) -at the pic- and Nicolò Melli ('91) in a great level Montenegro was eliminated (78-67). Benetton's guard scored 27 with 9/19 FG, while power-forward collected a double-double (23+11). Bojan Dubljevic ('91) had 17 and 12 rebounds, while Radosav Spasojevic ('92) -MVP last summer in the U18 Div.B EC- showed good things (10 points and 5 boards).
In the classification round between the 9th and 12th positions Sweden beat Greece (73-66) behind Davidson's Chris Czerapowicz ('91): 23 points and 3/5 threes with 9 rebounds. 6'9'' C Emmanouil Koukoulas ('91) had 15 points and 7 boards. In the other contest Ukraine won Slovenia (97-79) with Olekandr Lypovyy ('91) making many things: 21 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists. At the losing effort 7'0'' Bosnian born Alen Omic ('92) collected a double-double (25+11).
Finally, in the Relegation Round, Austria beat Croatia (61-59) with a great job from Anton Maresch ('91): 19 points and 8 boards. At croatian side Boris Barac ('92) -brother of Stanko- nailed 19 with 5/10 threes. Serbia -next season will play in Division "A"- beat Lithuania (67-75) behind its leader Nemanja Nedovic ('91): 18 with 2/3 threes. Golden boy Dovydas Redikas ('92) wasn't enough with 22 and 8/15 FG.
Standings (relegation round): Serbia (4-0), Austria (2-2), Lithuania and Croatia (1-3).
Photo: FIBA Europe / Castoria / Marchi
