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By
Aran Smith
5/2/08
Thursday
Thursday
kicked off the Junior competition and it quickly became apparent
that this year's 1990 group is significantly stronger than
the 1989 group that competed in Athens a year ago.
Barcelona 73 Red Star 69
In the first game of the day, Barcelona came out hot in the
second half to edge Red Star by four in a close ball game.
Barcelona's star guard Nihad
Dedovic was inactive for the game, but Barca was able
to come away with the close win nonetheless behind a game
high 23 points from Konstantine Tomardze, 19 from Daniel Perez
and 18 from Alejandro Hernandez. Red Star got 14 from Marko
Loncovic.
Lietuvos Rytas 74 Cibona 72
The second game of the day was equally close and exciting.
Rytas was able to edge Cibona in the end by 2 behind 23 points
from Augustas Peciukevicius.
For Cibona, 6-11 forward Tomislav
Zubcic showed why many consider him among the top handful
of junior prospects in Europe. He exploded for 24 points and
19 rebounds with a number of impressive plays, displaying
the versatility to shoot it from the perimeter as well as
finish at the rim. Leon
Radosevic was also impressive for Cibona with 14 and
10 showing that he's a quality second option to Zubcic.
FMP 95 Maccabi
Tel Aviv 68
This game quickly
turned into a rout as FMP built a 27-11 first quarter lead.
Maccabi appears to be severely undermanned and may struggle
to win a game here. They were no match for a quality FMP team.
Noam Levy led the team with 18 points. Maccabi's top talent
Daniel
Rom finished with 8 points on a dreadful 4-15 shooting
performance.
For FMP, their two big men Dejan
Musli
and Bojan Subotic had 18 a piece. Their tough and athletic
6-foot-6 wing Aleksandar
Ponjavic had a very efficient 15 points shooting 3/4
from 2 and 3/4 from 3 as well as 6 boards and 4 assists.
Zalgiris
Kaunas 92 Real Madrid 66
The game was much closer for much of the contest than the
score would indicate as Kaunas delivered a fourth quarter
KO outscoring Madrid by 20 in the final period. It was an
extremely tough opening game for Real, whose top players Nikola
Mirotic
and Ryan
Richards
did not appear mentally or physically ready to play and ran
out of gas in the second half.
Donatas
Motiejunas
showed how dominant he can be when he puts his mind to it.
His 28 points (9-13 fg) (10-11 ft) led all scorers on the
day and he was the difference using his explosiveness and
length around the basket. He was the most impressive player
last year in Athens and has started off this year's junior
event the same way. Ukraine's Oliksey Pecherov was taken 18th
in 2006, and though that might have been a bit high for him,
Motiejunas is easily a better prospect.
Mirotic had an impressive first half where he showed off his
tremendous offensive skill set. He knocked down two 3 pointers
as well as a bank shot high off the glass. Though he lacks
great leaping ability, he shows solid speed and length and
has a body and skill set reminiscent of Shareef Abdur-Rahim.
He's certainly one of the more interesting players here, and
being born in 1991 (listed), shows a good deal of potential.
Mirotic finished with 15 and 9 and can develop into a first
round pick someday if his body fills out.
Richards had a rough debut. He fouled out in just 10 minutes
of action finishing with 7 points. He looks a little out of
shape and his foot speed running the floor is not great. It's
important to keep in mind he's a 1991 kid so he's a year younger
than most of the kids here and in the US he would be entering
just his junior year of high school. But right now he's looking
more like a half court type of player and will need to work
on conditioning and speed.
His huge wingspan and solid touch give him NBA potential.
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