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Albert Schweitzer Tournament 2006

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  • Albert Schweitzer Tournament 2006

    Too bad that all the information from the previous thread got lost but you can read up all the boxscores and other stuff here:




    Now on to a bit more detailed report about the final day, I was in Mannheim last weekend and saw some really great games:

    Germany - USA 82:106 (Game for Place 7)
    Topscorers Germany: Hauer 22pts (4ast), Heyden 19pts (12rbds)
    Topscorers USA: Jackson 25pts (11rbds, 5bs, 5 TO), Jardine 23pts (5rbds, 5st, 3ast)

    I couldn't see this game because I spent the time in the US security check...

    Lithuania - Italy 79:77 OT (Game for Place 5)
    Topscorers Lithuania: Cepukaitis 16pts (12rbds, 3bs), Kleiza 12pts (7rbds)
    Topscorers Italy: Aradori 23pts (8rbds, 4 TO), Tomassini 9pts (3ast, 3st), Ferrero 9pts (4rbds)

    Lithuania played without Martynas Gecevicius and Marius Valukonis but still didn't look bad, the other players obviously wanted to show what they can do as well. I was a bit disappointed by the shooting abilities of the Liths, they clearly didn't have a single shooter on the floor - but on the other hand were much more athletic than I expected (at least some of the players) and played nice team basketball. Italy on the other hand was a one man show only (Aradori), something that should cost them the win in the end, having a bad coach on the bench, who obviously spent all his time shouting at the wrong players, while Aradori never was critisized. He is clearly their most talented player but way too selfish. In the first half Lithuania didn't find a way to stop him though but went into halftime with a lead anyways because of the many points they scored inside. In the 2nd half Italy looked better and managed to build a decent lead and everybody thought that the game was over but in the final minutes of the 4th Quarter Pietro Aradori destroyed his own team. Every time he got the ball he tried to do it all alone, the Liths understood this pretty fast and went into double/triple teams and he'd still not pass but rather take the bad shot. So Lithuania came back into the game and the (very good) Vaidas Cepukaitis scored a layup for the Overtime with only seconds to go.
    In the overtime the same story continued on the Italian side and the Italian coach was obviously not willing to bench his star for not passing the ball at all. On the other hand Lithuania seemed to be nervous now and couldn't hit either so the game got close again. In the final seconds, Lithuania scored two for the lead, leaving the last attack to the Italians. Aradori once again tried to finish against three, missing the layup, the Liths got the defensive rebound but committed a stupid turnover on the fastbreak, leaving one more chance to Italy. Aradori once again got the ball and instead of passing to wide open teammate decided to take a very difficult triple against two defenders, barely hit the rim and the game was over. Lithuania deserved this win more because they played clever. The players that impressed me the most on their side were Darius Gvezdauskas, an already pretty athletic Guard with good ballhandling skills and great, pin-point passing skills - he looked like a pretty decent PG - and the skinny Center Vaidas Cepukaitis, who already has some decent moves and also had a nice timing in the Defense, rebounding and blocking shots - but he definately needs to add weight to be successful on a higher level. On the Italian side Aradori looked like the most talented player - but he definately needs to learn to pass the ball and not to play that selfish, he destroyed his team in the end despite being their best player.

    Serbia & Montenegro - Croatia 78:75 (Game for Place 3)
    Topscorers Serbia: Macvan 33pts, Jeremic 12pts (3st)
    Topscorers Croatia: Petani 17pts, Delas 15pts (6rbds, 4ast)

    If the previous game was a thriller this game was much more than that. Very intensive, aggressive game, with both teams showing their great fundamental skills.
    Serbia in the beginning quickly managed to build a lead, led by the absolutely unstoppable PF Milan Macvan. But then Croatia came back into the game because of great team basketball and led by their great PG Bojan Bogdanovic and after the first Quarter Croatia led 20:18. The 2nd Quarter began with a shock for the Croatians, Bogdanovic suffered an ankle injury and couldn't continue the game, something that led to some problems for the Croatians on the PG position. They still managed to stay in front though until the third Quarter, also because Serbias Center Miroslav Raduljica played like a joke and was absolutely disappointing. In the 4th Quarter the game quickly turned though and Serbia managed to build a decent lead, obviously felt too safe though (like their fans who already celebrated behind their bench) and allowed Croatia to come back. With about 40secs to go, ball for Serbia and -4 points, Croatia started to play an incredible full court press, forcing the turnover rightaway - Sakic directly shot a triple and brought the game to -1. Croatia continued the press, forced another turnover and Sakic was fouled on the fastbreak (borderline unsportsmanlike) at 29secs to go. He made the first to tie the game, 75-75, missed the second - but Croatia took the offensive board, played down the time and took the shot at about 7secs to go - and missed. First it looked like Croatia would take another offensive board but Serbia managed to grab it - and then Croatia made the mistake of the game: they committed a foul at 1.8secs to go inside Serbias three-point line (no team fouls yet), allowing Serbia to take the timeout and getting possession at the middle line. Croatia played a decent deny defense once again, not allowing PG Aleksandar Radulovic to get the ball and almost stopped SG Mladen Jeremic from getting it as well, he somehow got hold of the ball more than a metre behind the three-point line, turned around and shot the ball over the croatian defender - and hit it with the buzzer. The Serbian players (and fans) were storming the floor and celebrating like mad.
    On Serbias side Macvan clearly was the best player, pretty strong player, uses his body under the rim - and has a decent midrange jumper. Other players that looked good on Serbias side were PG Radulovic and SG Jeremic (who hit some nice shots before as well) and Stefan Markovic because of the very good defense he played. On Croatia side Bogdanovic (until his injury), Petani and SF/PF Zeljko Sakic were the most impressing players. Petani couldn't organize the game like Bogdanovic did before but scored a lot on the other hand while Sakic clearly didn't have his best day but showed a lot of potential.

    France - Turkey 78:56 (Final)
    Topscorers France: Batum 23pts, Ajinca 12pts (7rbds, 4bs)
    Topscorers Turkey: Sevinc 13pts (3rbds), Özcan 11pts (4rbds)

    This was no thriller but a great game anyways. France began in a spectacular way, Ajinca slammed in two alley-oops, catching the ball about half a metre above the rim each time. It seemed that France wanted to produce a highlight show from the very beginning, getting the crowd on their side and they had numerous dunks and blocks in the first Quarter (not even half of them were scouted it seems) - but forgot to play basketball at one point. Turkey seemed to be annoyed by the way France played and got back into the game, led by Ogün Sevinc and Can Özcan, not allowing France to score and suddenly were in the lead 26:38 at halftime.
    But then things changed, France started furious into the second half, only allowing Turkey to score 3pts in the 3rd Quarter, leading 49-41 after 3 Quarters. Especially SG Nicolas Batum looked great, he did whatever he wanted, dunking, shooting triples, stealing the ball. The most impressive scene was right after halftime when he beat his defender over the baseline, was double teamed and dunked over two jumping defenders with both hands. Turkey couldn't find an answer at all and at one point France led by almost 30pts, they had the better individual talent and the better teamplay and won the title deserved in the end, as they were the best team of the tournament.
    For France MVP Batum was the best player. Center Alexis Ajinca looked good though, too. 17 years old, 2,14m and a monster in the zone. Turkey didn't dare to go inside at one point any more, he'd block them whenever they tried. Actually the only things he needs to do are adding weight and improving his midrange jumper, then he'll be a great Center at a higher level, too. 17-year old PG Antoine Diot looked very good as well (although he didn't have too much luck with his shots), great ballhandling, good passing skills, did organize the game in a very good way and managed to shut down Turkeys PG Balbay.
    On Turkeys side PF Baris Hersek looked good but couldn't do too much inside because of Ajincas presence, Sevinc and Özcan were decent, too.

    Tournament Awards:

    MVP: Nicolas Batum (France)
    Burkhard-Wildermuth-Trophy for the most talented player: Alexis Ajinca (France)

    All-Tournament Team:

    Dogus Balbay (Turkey)
    Nicolas Batum (France)
    Omri Casspi (Israel)
    Miroslav Raduljica (Serbia)
    Alexis Ajinca (France)

  • #2
    you saw 3 whole games in a day?
    that's called determination... anyway really nice report man, I needed some back-up on Ajinca since he was starting to seem as another "let's hype an euro" player.
    Originally posted by Jon_Koncak
    That's funny shit.I cant believe there are sports fans thinking like it.It's like Federer losing to random Japanese player in round 1 of French Open but tournament director stepping in and saying "hey it was a fluke win who wants to watch a random Japanese guy in next round,Federer qualifies"

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    • #3
      Alexis Ajinca

      I saw him play at the basketball without boarders camp last summer and was disapointed. He is extremely long and has a huge wingspan but he really didnt dominate in any way. He has the highest vertical reach of any of the players by such a margin that you would expect every rebound to be his. However he rarely looked like he 'owned' the paint.

      Potentially he could be a great player, he has all the tools. I saw him hit a number of 3s over the camp and his shooting form looked decent. Personally however I prefered Samb (the younger one) from Barcelona and Dan Clarke from Estudiantes

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Matiz
        you saw 3 whole games in a day?
        that's called determination... anyway really nice report man, I needed some back-up on Ajinca since he was starting to seem as another "let's hype an euro" player.
        I actually wanted to see 4 games but the security check took too long

        Originally posted by Run and Jump
        I saw him play at the basketball without boarders camp last summer and was disapointed. He is extremely long and has a huge wingspan but he really didnt dominate in any way. He has the highest vertical reach of any of the players by such a margin that you would expect every rebound to be his. However he rarely looked like he 'owned' the paint.

        Potentially he could be a great player, he has all the tools. I saw him hit a number of 3s over the camp and his shooting form looked decent. Personally however I prefered Samb (the younger one) from Barcelona and Dan Clarke from Estudiantes
        He looked pretty good at the AST, especially dominating in defense (as I said, at one point the turkish players didn't dare to play inside any more). However, the rebounding problem was still there, for a player of his size he should get a lot more rebounds. There are imo two reasons for this weakness: a) he's too skinny and therefore can be pushed around too easy and b) he often forgets to box out properly in defense, leading to offensive rebounds by the opponent. He definately needs to add some weight so he cannot be pushed around that easy, not only on behalf of the rebounding but for defense in general as well. Although he has a great timing for blocking shots that won't help him much later when he'll play other guys of the same size who have much more weight than he has, they'll simply push him away. Also his midrange jumper wasn't really impressive, he actually only scored with either dunks or his baby-hook (he also tried to shoot a triple at one point but that was way off), he needs to work on this as well. But overall he looked pretty good and well developed for a 17-year old and he sure has a lot of potential, let's see how he develops during the next 2-3 years.
        I'd have given the Burkhard-Wildermuth-Trophy for the most talented player to Nicolas Batum though, he was simply amazing and showed a lot of potential as well - but as he already got the MVP trophy I guess that they wanted to give it to somebody else, there were some other candidates as well but Ajinca definately is no bad choice imo.

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        • #5
          It was nearly a year since I saw him last so I am hoping he has improved. Like I said, he has all the tools, good body (apart from being skinny), quick feet, long arms but he was just another player on the court. I hope that he can continue to improve as he could be very good but you want a player of his size and abilities to dominate the every game in the way that you said he did this one. Even with being light in frame I still think that he should be able to rebound the ball far better than he does.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Run and Jump
            It was nearly a year since I saw him last so I am hoping he has improved. Like I said, he has all the tools, good body (apart from being skinny), quick feet, long arms but he was just another player on the court. I hope that he can continue to improve as he could be very good but you want a player of his size and abilities to dominate the every game in the way that you said he did this one. Even with being light in frame I still think that he should be able to rebound the ball far better than he does.
            I 100% agree with you on this, he should get more rebounds than he does and being skinny is no excuse there, it'd help him to have more weight but in the end all will depend on him, on how much he works for the rebound, if he doesn't work to get the board (by not boxing out for example) he'll never rebound as well as he could by his abilities.
            I'd also like to add (just to avoid misunderstandings ) that he dominated in defense - in offense he was spectacular (several dunks, two of them being alley-oop dunks in the first Quarter), but didn't dominate, he played a decent game in offense but helped his team much more in defense.

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            • #7
              Samb

              Originally posted by Run and Jump
              Personally however I prefered Samb (the younger one) from Barcelona
              Mamadou Samb had 31 points, 10 rebounds and 4 blocks in Barcelona's first game in the Euroleague Junior tournament. He is an 89 born player and I personally think he is better than Aijincia. He has simliar physical tools but is much more polished offensively.

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