REGENSBURG (David Hein’s Eye on the Future) - The 2016 FIBA U17 World Championship has lived up to its billing thus far with two overwhelming North American powers, records being broken and another Dragan making a name for himself. 

The United States and Canada have clearly established themselves as the powers to beat as the Quarter-Finals tip off. The United States have never really been challenged - though Turkey was "close" in losing by "only" 18 points in the Group Stage. But none of their opponents have come close to dealing with the Americans' length, power, athleticism and depth. 

The USA v Korea will likely be a blowout as well but it could be very entertaining thanks to the Asian champions uncommon style of play. One team which could come close to matching the Americans’ power and athleticism is France with the likes of Jaylen Hoard, Yves Pons, Olivier Sarr and Timothee Bazille. But the French first must pass through the Lithuanians in the Quarters - a tough battle as the only all-European tussle in the final eight. 

The Canadians seem like the toughest match-up for the USA with the likes of RJ Barrett and Simi Shittu. There are other excellent weapons for Canada but the question is how Canada would deal with the powerful USA inside three-headed nightmare Wendell Carter Jr., Carte'Are Gordon and Austin Wiley. 

The U17 Worlds have also seen some amazing individual performances, including breaking tournament records. It started in the first game of the tournament as Hoard torched Korea for 41 points to even the scoring record which was set by Australian Isaac Humphries against Canada in the 2014 FIBA U17 World Championship. 

The record did not last a week as Dzanan Musa dropped 50 points on Chinese Taipei in the Classification 9-16 a day after he and Bosnia and Herzegovina shed plenty of tears following their Round of 16 loss to Australia. The supremely confident Musa admitted afterwards that he was going for the record, saying: "That failure was just more motivation to go harder and work harder for today's game. I set my goal for 50 points and I made that and I’m happy about that." 

Another record to go down was the mark for the most rebounds as Dominican Republic's Anderson Mirambeaux had a monster game of 24 points and 22 rebounds against Korea. Mirambeaux eclipsed the previous best of 20 rebounds held by France's Stephane Gombauld at the 2014 FIBA U17 Worlds. Ahmed Khalaf of Egypt matched the 22 rebounds in Egypt's triple-overtime loss to Argentina. 

Another player who has wowed fans in Zaragoza is Dragan Elkaz, who gave people a reason to forget about Dragan Bender and NBA Draft night for a while. While Bender was waiting to see who he would get drafted by in New York, the Australian guard torched Canada for 17 points in the fourth quarter but the Aussies came up just short in a loss. 

But Elkaz was not done. He scored just four points combined in Australia's second and third games and then showed up again in the fourth quarter against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Round of 16. Elkaz nailed four three-pointers and once against scored 17 points in the fourth quarter - this time getting the victory and sending the two-time finalists into the Quarter-Finals. 

The big-time games are only about to start so there will be plenty of highlights if you haven’t been keeping up. Remember, all the games are being shown live on the FIBA YouTube channel.

David Hein

FIBA

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