By Ruben Alcaraz
Past weekend took part the seventeenth edition of U16 international tournament of La Orotava at Tenerife, Spain. The winner of this classic tournament was Canterbury Lions (Spain) that beat Real Madrid (Spain) in the final 46 to 45. Besides powerhouse Real Madrid and Canterbury Lions, the other teams from Spain were Gran Canaria, Canarias Basketball Academy, Basquet Cornellà, and local team San Isidro. Completed the tournament Kaunas Bs Aisciai (Lithuania) and Kostroma BK (Russia).
Forward Stanislav Kudriavcev (’99) was the best player of a weak Kostroma BK that lost all games by an average of 81 points. Kudriavcev averaged double-double in points and rebounds.
Lithuanian Lukas Garliauskas (’99) averaged 9 points and 5 rebounds per game and was the most consistent player of a choral Kaunas team that missed a few players to compete like other years for the tournament.
Spanish shooting guard Ian de Tomas (’99) was the best player of the host team San Isidro averaging 11 points and 6 rebounds per contest.
Point guard Alfons Pilan (’99) was the most outstanding player of Catalan team of Basquet Cornellà that finished 5th in the tournament. He averaged 10 points and 3 rebounds per game.
Another guard, Gabriel Alonso (’99) drove his team Gran Canaria to semifinals averaging 12 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals per match.
Chinese phenom Wang Xiaoyi (’99) stood out over his teammates of CBA with 16 points and 4 rebounds per game to clinch the third place of the tournament.
The main attraction of the tournament was Real Madrid with a bunch of great prospects. They lost big Khadim Sow (’99) at the very first minute of the third game by injury when he was averaging 9 points and 9 rebounds. Serbian born Dino Radoncic (’99) averaged 10 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists in less than 20 minutes per contest with a 50% from the 3 point line. Other interesting players are Spaniard Acoydan McCarthy (’99), Bosnian point guard Mihailo Jovicic (’99), shooting guard Carlos Unanue (’00), forward Francisco Salvador (’99) and Bosnian forward Lazar Mutic (’99). After winning easy all games by an average of more than 65 points they lost the final by 1 point.
The most valuable player so far at La Orotava was Souleymane Diakité (’99) of the champion Canterbury Lions (Spain). He crushed all teams almost alone averaging 23 points, 21 rebounds and 3 blocks per game. Point guard Guillermo Rodriguez (’99) was his best allied with 12 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists per match. The youngest team at La Orotava won the three point shooting contest also with Santiago Aldama (’01).
If you are a subscriber you will receive this week links to see the final, third place game and semifinals. If you are not still a subscriber and want to see these games follow the instructions of this link http://www.eurohopes.com/signup/register
Twitter of the author: @Filipy09
Photo: Canterbury
