By Ruben Alcaraz
Past weekend took part in Logroño (Spain) last preparation games for Spain, Greece and England, three teams that will compete at U18 European Championship Division "A" in Konya (Turkey). Eurohopes travelled to check some interesting prospects and see how they practice and play days before the big event.
Game 1
Spain beat England 74 to 42 thanks to a great run in the third quarter. Marc Garcia (’96) with 23 points (4 threes), 3 rebounds and 2 assists was the best player of the game. Yankuba Sima (’96) helped in the win with 13 points, 6 rebounds and 3 steals. For England, Calvin Kintu (’97) was the only English player that scored double digits with 12 points.
Game 2
Greece beat a poor England 68 to 33. Giorgos Tsalmpouris (’96) dominated the paint with 16 points and 10 rebounds in only 19 minutes. Combo-guard Dimitris Stamatis (’96) added 10 points to get the win. Kintu with 11 points and Aidan Gastaldi-Davies (’97) with 12 points were the only menace of England offense.
Game 3
In the best game of the weekend Greece beat Spain 69 to 33. Spain had to adjust his rotation due Marc Bauzà’s injury in the game against England that will make him lose the European Championship. Players like Jacobo Díaz (’96) played inside and did a good job grabbing 10 rebounds. Surprisingly Greece didn’t use a lot their 7-footer Tsalmpouris and Georgios Papagiannis (’97) with less than 5 minutes each on the court. Greece trusted in a 5 formed by Antonios Koniaris (’97), Stamatis, Vasileios Charalampopoulos (’97), Konstantinos Mitoglou (’96) and Thomas Kottas (’96). Lefty Charalampopoulos showed great potential with 12 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals. The playmaker Koniaris made key steals to secure the game and finished with 16 points and 7 steals. 28 turnovers was too much for Spain that had Francisco Alonso (’96) leading the way with 17 points (4 threes) but 8 turnovers. Diego Gallardo (’96), a sniper, helped with 18 points (4 threes at first half).
Photo: Logronodeporte.es
Twitter of the author: @Filipy09
