By Filipy Ruben Alcaraz
Eurohopes travelled past weekend to Tenerife Island to see one of the best U16 european tournaments, the International Tournament U16 Villa de la Orotava. Four teams from Canary Islands, another Spaniard team, one Lithuanian, one German and one Dutch competed during 4 days for the win. Let’s see, in order of their final classification, a review of each participant team:
CB San Isidro (Spain): Local team that well hosted the tournament and played every game with effort and desire but lost it by average of 45 points.
CBA Heidelberg (Spain): The only team that beat Canterbury Lions at the tournament showed an interesting team but short roster. Their leaders were Alberto Artiles (’97) shooting guard, that averaged 21 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3 steals per game and the point guard Daniel Melián (’97) that made 17.8 points, 5 rebounds, 2.5 dimes, 4.5 steals but also 4.5 turnovers per game. Artiles is natural born scoring machine that get points easily, with long range shots, drives and getting fouls. Melián is a quick point guard that faces one on one situation with intelligence but he is not a pure playmaker.
Basketball Stars Weert (Netherlands): The only players of the team that can score in double digits often were playmaker Joshua Bruijnzeels (’98) and shooting guard Bart Schild (’97). Bruijnzeels scored 11 points per game with quick drives to the basket and stole 3 balls per game with a good defensive intensity. Schild averaged 15 points per game with well finished fast breaks. Rest of the team had problems to score and their backcourt was young and weak.
Brose Basket (Germany): Strong and complete team where everybody helps with good things. The most talented player of the team is swingman Daniel Keppeler (’97) 6’6”, that shined in last game with 12 points, 8 rebounds and 6 blocks. Center Leon Kratzer (’97) 6’8”, averaged 10 points and 13 boards per game and showed that he can be dominant in the paint.
Gran Canaria (Spain): In a not high scoring team, Saulo Román (’98) 6’2” averaged 8 points, 5 rebounds and 4 steals per game meanwhile Guillermo Lasso (’98) 6’3” averaged 7 points and 4 rebounds alternating great games with others than was completely dissapeared. Latvian Dzeiks Eduards (’97) 6’4”, winner of 3 point shootout contest did not play any minute even when he did games warm up with the yellow team.
Estudiantes (Spain): Great tournament by Estudiantes that lost in the best game of the weekend against Kaunas in the semifinal. Their most outstanding player was Alejandro Young (’97) 6’5” with a great wingspan that played in a very smart way and averaged 12 points, 6.5 boards, 2 assists and 2 steals per game. Other player that made a good tournament was shooting guard Javier de la Fuente (’97) 6’2”, that helped Estudiantes to clinch the 3rd spot scoring 9 points per game.
Kaunas BS Aisciai (Lithuania): Best player of the tournament by far was small forward Martynas Varnas (’97) 6’3”, that received the MVP trophy. Besides his semifinal performance, scoring 20 points in the last quarter to overcome a double digit disadvantage against Estudiantes and hitting the game winner shot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYpJri9thQE), Varnas averaged 23 points, 8 rebounds, 3.4 assists and countless dunks per match but he struggled in the final scoring only 8 points. Unstoppable first step during the tournament Varnas dished the ball like a playmaker. Aidas Kuzminskas (’97) blew up in the last game with 25 points (8 of 18 beyond the arc).
Canterbury Lions (Spain): Lions has their own version of Big Three with 3 African players: Bourama Sidibe (’97) 6’9”, Souleymane Diakité (’99) 6’8” and Tahirou Diabaté (’98) 6’8”. Sidibe helped Canterbury to get the tournament trophy with an amazing performance in the final scoring 26 points, grabbing 28 boards, stealing 3 balls and blocking 4 shots. Sidibe averaged 23.5 points, 15 rebounds and 4 blocks during the tournament. Diakaté made 11 points and 14.5 rebounds per game and Diabaté helped with 5 points and 6 rebounds per contest.
Eurohopes 5 of the tournament
PG: Dani Melián (CBA Heidelberg)
SG: Martynas Varnas (Kaunas BS Aisciai)
SF: Alejandro Young (Estudiantes)
PF: Souleymane Diakité (Canterbury Lions)
C: Bourama Sidibe (Canterbury Lions)
Twitter of the author: @Filipy09
Photo: cantenburylionsbasketball.com
