By Konstantinos iliadis – Coach of Ioannina team
The analysis of teams’ characteristics ahead of the FIBA’s U19 World Cup continues today with two traditional European powerhouses that find themselves in the same group and will face each other from the first phase. We are speaking of the home team Greece and Serbia.
GREECE (Ilias Papatheodorou) 4TH Eurobasket U18 2014
Greece participates in this tournament with a lot of ambition and a highly talented generation. Unfortunately, we don’ t yet know if or when Charalampopoulos will be available due to his injury 4 days before the beginning of the tournament and that could differentiate a lot on how the team will look like. In guards’ position Stamatis (1996), although he is short, he will be an important player, as he is going to help a lot with his quickness and his creativity. The main guy to watch is Dorsey(1996), a very quick player in the open court, who also has a good touch.
One of the biggest prospects around Europe in big guys is Papagiannis(1997), who is a very skilled 2.17cm player and will be a weapon for Greece, especially if coach Papatheodorou manages to cover some of his defensive weaknesses with zone defense. Greece’s main offensive options will be post plays for big guys, shooting chances for the two power forwards(Mitoglou, Tsalmpouris) who have great shoot, and of course if Charalampopoulos is healthy, his creation through post situations and his long distance great shot. Greece want to succeed in front of their own fans and this will be a difficult task through the knock out matches, in which the players will need to bring their own winning mentality in order to succeed.
SERBIA (Aleksandar Bucan) 2nd EUROBASKET U18 2014
Unfortunately the best player, the leader and scorer, of this generation of Serbs, Lazarevic (1996), broke his arm and is in a race against time in order to be ready for the tournament, with his participation being determined at the last minute (the chances are on his side). In any case, we are speaking of an excellent winger with a huge talent in offense and really good ball handling. From the rest of the guys, a standout player is the combo guard Peno (1997) with his creative game but mostly his flair in execution constituting his basic characteristics. A really good unit is Simic (1996), a backcourt player with a remarkable shot.