By Alen Obrez

 

Just one more week remains until the start of the second round of Slovenian U18 championship. In the first round we saw a lot of great games and of course players that might be future stars of Slovenian basketball. Sixteen teams in the first league were divided in two divisions – eastern and western. A quick overview shows us that the best team in both groups was Zlatorog Lasko, whose players managed to grab 13 victories in 14 games. Zlatorog, who of course played only against teams in eastern division, lost only against Krka, who was the second best team (12-2). Those two teams were followed by Helios (11-3), the fourth best team Konjice was already far behind with 7 victories. In the western division the best teams were Geoplin Slovan (11-3), Parklji (10-4) and Komenda (9-5). Juniors of the best Slovenian team Union Olimpija are only on the fifth place (7-7).

Next weekend the teams will start the second round. The first four teams from each division will now play together in 1.A division. Probably the biggest favourite of the league is Zlatorog. They were amazingly dominant in the first round – their average winning difference was 32 points and 7 times they also managed to score 100 points or more. They have a lot of great players with potential, two of them are already part of Zlatorog’s senior team, who is competing in the Adriatic and Slovenian league. Those two guys are 6'4'' Miha Lapornik ('93) and 6'11'' Ziga Dimec ('93) -at the pic-, who are also the leading scorers in junior league (Lapornik with 21 points per game, Dimec with 19.1). The other important players are also Jusuf Nurkic (6'11'', '94; 11.6 points), Tim Skerbec (6'8'', '93; 11.1), Rok Gominsek (6'4'', '93; 11.0), Jan Mlakar (6'6'', '94, 10.5) and Matic Macek (6'2'', '94, 6.9).

I am sure we will witness a lot of great games in the following weeks, especially because there are a lot of great players in each team, so Zlatorog will surely have a hard job maintaining that kind of winning rhythm. At the end of the second round, four best teams will qualify to Final Four tournament. In my opinion, those four teams are Zlatorog, Krka, Geoplin and Helios. I have already pointed out the best Zlatorog players, who will have a hard time dealing with following players:

Krka: Matej Rojc (6'6'', '93), Jan Osolnik (6'8'', '93), Domen Bratoz (6'1'', '93).

Geoplin Slovan: Luka Rupnik (6'0'', '93), Aleksander Tomic (6'5'', '93), Matevz Dobravec (6'4'', '93), Jure Kopac (6'6'', '94).

Helios: Tomaz Bolcina (6'9'', '94), Matic Rebec (5'10'', '95).

Twitter of the author: @alenobrez

Photo: Zlatorog Lasko