Recaps

The two first days of action are in the books in the Villa de Íscar International U16 Tournament, and we will give a brief recap of the most impressive performances from days 1 & 2. As mentioned in our tournament preview, the Íscar tournament is a marquee date on scouting calendars – one of the…

This past weekend saw the 12th edition of the U15 Torneo Fundación Leucemia y Linfoma, a marquee yearly tournament featuring several of the better teams in Spain and the first milestone in the U15 Spain basketball scene, with renowned past MVPs like Domantas Sabonis or Usman Garuba. In this edition, CB Canarias (the youth system of BCL and ACB team Lenovo Tenerife) and Valencia Basket joined Real Madrid as ACB clubs, competing alongside two competitive local teams in CB Alcobendas and Real Canoe and the regional Madrid U14 team, featuring a selection of the best players from all Madrid teams from the U14 category.

Last weekend Pesaro hosted “Ibsa Next Gen Cup” where the U19 youth programs of Italian LBA clubs faced up to in two different groups. In these days, just the first phase of the tournament has been held, attending the final stage at the end of February that will be located in Trento. In the group A, Pesaro and Tortona got three wins in as many games, with Treviso and Trieste that answer positively with a 2-1 record. In the group B, Trento ended up the only undefeated team with 4 rivals chasing (Milano, Venezia, Verona and Napoli).

Over the past weekend, Getafe, a city on the periphery of Madrid, Spain, hosted the II Torneo de Canteras ACB, the first notable date on the calendar for the U14 Spanish basketball generation. Featuring three powerhouses in Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Valencia Basket, notable ACB teams UCAM Murcia, Carplus Fuenlabrada and BAXI Manresa and a youth category staple in Movistar Estudiantes along with the hosts Aristos Getafe.

A recap of the top prospects seen at the third leg of the Euroleague ANGT that took place in Varese, Italy, last weekend. Pole France won the ANGT Varese after beating Next Generation Varese in the final game.

Khayat’s basketball journey started in Lebanon where he played until he was 14. Then, in March 2018, the talented kid went to France for a camp and try-out with Nanterre. It so happened that attending the try-out was a Coach from Limoges who saw him and proposed to join their team for a practice

Martinez represented the U16 Swiss National Team at the FIBA European Championships in 2018 and 2019 as well as the U18 National Team at the FIBA Challengers this past summer. Standing at 6’8 205, the Swiss prospect grew up playing in Switzerland for Bernex before moving to Geneva Basketball Academy. He last played in France in the LNB Espoirs league for Dijon before leaving for the US where he’s about to take a post grad year at Williston Northampton High School in Massachusetts.

Over the last years Iceland has become an important place for prospects that have followed the college route. Plenty of recruits ended up in college just in 2021 whether at the D1 or D2 level with Styrmir Prastarson (Davidson), Aljaz Vidmar (Howard), Arnor Eythorsson (Toledo) among others. Atlason started playing basketball when he was four years old at KR Reykjavik and now at 17 he’s part of the senior team rotation.

Karl Poom is a 6-foot-8, 210-pound power forward out of Estonia and is one of the most intriguing bigs in the class of 2023. Poom started playing basketball when he was 7 years old at Erkmaa Basketball School, a youth basketball academy in the city of Tartu founded by Aivo Erkmaa.