HERAKLION (2015 FIBA U19 World Championship) - The United States will battle a group of tough Europeans among others at the 2015 FIBA U19 World Championship as they hope to become the first country to defend their title since they achieved the feat in 1983. 

The USA enter the 12th U19 Worlds with a record five titles and two of the last three crowns. The USA team that played in Prague two years ago now has seven players who have been drafted into the NBA and this American team will likely have a high number of future NBA players as well. 

Four players selected in the 2015 NBA Draft - Stanley Johnson, Justise Winslow, Tyus Jones and Myles Turner - helped the United States qualify for the 16-team tournament in Heraklion, but are not playing in Greece. They are part of a major group of stars who either withdrew from the tournament or will miss it through injury. 

The United States head into the competition as one of the heavy favourites despite being one of the younger teams, with five players born in 1997 or 1998. But all of them are already world champions as each helped the USA to the 2014 FIBA U17 World Championship title.

There are indications that the USA could struggle as five of the seven players from the 1996 generation will be playing in their first FIBA competition, and the team has not played together for any significant time - with the training camp only beginning on June 13. 

Sean Miller's team will likely rely on a relentless defensive pressure, meaning those countries who can handle the ball will stand the best chance to unseat off the champs. 

The Europeans promise the biggest obstacle to the Americans' repeat - because of their talent depth, their size and their ball-handling skills. 

Turkey come to Greece as the U18 European champions and a team full of highly-skilled players. Egemen Guven is a talented big man while Furkan Korkmaz represents the future of Turkish basketball and Okben Ulubay is a magician who sometimes must reel in his tricks. 

Serbia finished second in 2013 and were runners-up at the 2014 U18 European Championship. And the Serbs must be considered a title contender with supreme depth at every position, including at playmaking with Stefan Peno, Ilija Dokovic and Vojislav Stojanovic. 

Croatia meanwhile have a couple of the most excited players in the entire tournament with Dragan Bender, Marko Arapovic, Nik Slavica and Ante Zizic. But they will be hit hard by not having injured Lovro Mazalin on board, meaning Goran Filipovic will have to step up his game at the playmaker spot.

The Greeks also have a great grouping of players with a lot of international experience and a boisterous home crowd. But they face a major injury question with leader Vasilis Charalampopoulos dealing with a nasty ankle sprain. 

While Italy are missing Federico Mussini, the team went through the entire training camp and preparation game stage without the scoring guard. So they have worked out any game style changes and look for Diego Flaccadori and Andrea La Torre to be the main players to be called upon to pick up the slack.

The final European team Spain have two excellent shooters in Marc Garcia and Xabi Lopez as well as a strong inside player in Yankuba Sima. But they might be lacking the depth to seriously contend.

While USA and the Europeans are the top contenders, Canada and Australia both could be dangerous because of the rest of the team bonding together even more to make up for some major absences. 

Argentina will lack size in the paint and be forced to play small ball with plenty of focus to be on NBA draft pick Juan Pablo Vaulet, while Dominican Republic are back at the U19 Worlds for the first time since 1983.

China registered their best-ever U19 result two summers ago with a seventh-place finish. But the Asian powers will have a challenge to match that, especially without Qi Zhou - though Hu Jinqiu will now get a chance to shine.

Iran will feature power forward Mohammad Yousof Vand while Korea would likely be happy to match their best ever showing of 11th place in 2007. And Egypt and Tunisia will be out to improve on the best finish by an African team of 11th place.

All the action from the 2015 FIBA U19 World Championship can be followed on YouTube/FIBA and on LiveBasketball.TV. 

All Group Phase and Round of 16 games will be streamed live on YouTube. The Quarter-Finals, Semi-Finals, Third-Place Game and Final will broadcast on LiveBasketkball.TV, while Classification Games 5-8 and 9-16 will be available on FIBA's YouTube channel.

FIBA