REGENSBURG (David Hein's Eye on the Future) - The countdown to the 2016 FIBA U17 World Championship has reached single digit days and, a week from today, on Thursday 23 June, all the anticipation will come to an end and the fourth U17 Worlds will tip off.

The teams' preparations have swung into high gear and many of the teams are still playing warm-up games - giving their coaches either answers to their questions or even more questions to be answered. 

Thankfully, it seems that most teams are still healthy and haven't seen players get hurt a week before the tournament starts.

With that, here is a run-down on where many of the teams are seven days out.

The United States have nailed down their 12-man roster and now head coach Don Showalter must put together the puzzle of a dozen very talented young players.

Seven times now, Showalter has mastered his puzzlery techniques and guided the USA to undefeated runs at the FIBA U17 World Championship - three times - and FIBA Americas U16 Championship - four times.

Showalter always likes to have versatile players who can play a number of positions, and he seems to have a good group of those players once again. One major factor could be Wendell Carter Jr. who is a beast inside and will be a nightmare for any other country in the competition.

The Americans will finish their training camp on Friday and then head to Europe. Showalter's team will get some games in ahead of the U17 Worlds, taking part in a tournament in Zaragoza along with Spain, Dominican Republic and Turkey.

Canada have already arrived in Europe and played their first warm-up game, an overtime loss to France in a mini-tournament in Auch, France where Australia and Argentina also featured. The problem is that David DeAveiro's top two players, Rowan Barrett Jr. and Simi Shittu, are not yet with the team. The 2000-born Barrett and 1999 star Shittu were at Canada's senior national team training camp and still have to make the trip across the ocean. 

Canada started their preparations very late and now their two biggest leaders will most likely miss the few warm-up games the team does have. Oh, and Canada's first game in the very competitive Group C will be against Australia, a team that named its 12-man roster on May 4 and will have played about a dozen games when the U17 Worlds tip off. 

Canada and Australia would seem to be favourites for the top two spots in Group C - which also features China and Finland. And the draw is set up so that the second-placed team in Group C could meet the USA in the Quarter-Finals - if the Americans top Group A and then get past their Round of 16 opponents. That all means Canada will need to be on their game from the very get-go.

Two other teams with high hopes in Zaragoza are European champions and debutants Bosnia and Herzegovina and hosts Spain. 

The two teams faced off in two warm-ups in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with both teams coming back from double-digit deficits to get a victory. Spain’s win was impressive considering that some 6,000 fans showed up in Sarajevo for the game and that it was Alejandro Martinez’s team’s first preparation game while the Bosnians had won all of their previous five warm-ups.

One thing is clear from looking at the games: Bosnia and Herzegovina will definitely rely heavily on their star Dzanan Musa.  They are basically done with their warm-up games while Spain still have the Zaragoza pre-tournament event with a trio of games.

Turkey are also in that Zaragoza tournament and coach Fatih Elbas can really use those three games to see what he has in his group. Onuralp Bitim has yet to really show his top quality in warm-ups and center Ahmet Can Duran was given 31 shots in a game - perhaps to get him out of the slump he had been in. 

Finland are also more or less done with games after playing Lithuania and two Czech youth teams. The Finns, who will still scrimmage against the Finnish U18 team, mainly want to get fully healthy after a flu bug was going around the team during their road trip to Lithuania and Czech Republic.

The Egyptians plan on two more contests back home before coming to Europe - taking on the Egyptian senior national team and the Egyptian U18 team. 

China are currently in Slovenia facing the Slovenian U18 team for three games as the Asians slowly finish off their preparations.

Plenty has happened in the past week or 10 days but even more will be going on in the final seven days before Zaragoza takes centre stage. There are still the final games in the two four-team tournaments in Auch and Zaragoza which will show us where half of the 16 teams are. 

And the final answers will come on 23 July, when Korea and France tip off the tournament. 

David Hein

FIBA

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