NIJT season nears again with plenty of talent to follow

REGENSBURG (David Hein's Eye on the Future) - While youth hoops fans have plenty of national team tournaments to watch during the summer to get their fix, winter youth basketball is dominated by the Nike International Junior Tournament (NIJT). And once Christmas passes, the NIJT takes center stage for a solid two months.

In 2013-14, just as ever, the NIJT campaign tips off in Italy with the Citta di Roma (December 27-29) and the second tournament following right after the New Year in the Barcelona suburb of L'Hospitalet (January 3-5).

After a good month to review notes on what great young future stars graced the NIJT courts in Italy and Spain, the event revs back up with a stop in Kaunas (February 7-9) and the fourth competition takes place in Belgrade (February 21-23).

The winners of those four tournaments as well as four wild card teams face off for the NIJT title as part of the Euroleague Final Four - this spring in Milan (May 15-18). The wild cards usually include Team China and a team from the host country.

Five different teams have won the title in the last five seasons with Joventut Badalona taking the crown in 2013, beating Barcelona in the final 82-59 to take the club’s first NIJT title in history.

With the first two tournaments ready to tip off, Eye on the Future put together a list of some of the top stars to watch in Rome and L'Hospitalet.

From Virtus Siena, the main player will be Pierfrancesco Oliva while Davide Alviti should be the man to watch for Virtus Rome. Andrea La Torre has already opened some eyes with Stellazurra Rome and EA7 Emporio Armani Milan's hopes will rely on the duo of Lorenzo Restelli and Giosue Hamadi.

Of the non-Italian clubs, the 15-year-old Amar Gegic should be an intriguing player to follow for Bosnian side Spars Sarajevo, who also have Alija Piric and Edin Atic. It will be interesting to see how Belorussian Max Salash handles himself for Cajasol Seville while Marko Arapovic is a superstar in the making for Cibona Zagreb, having already played at the 2012 FIBA U17 FIBA World Championship.

The remaining team is Bayern Munich, who have a number of interesting talents including Tim Hasbargen, who may not play after sitting the last six weeks with an ankle injury, and point guard Sebastian Schmitt. But perhaps the most intriguing player at the Rome tournament may be Bayern's 15-year-old Richard Freudenberg.

Moving onto the L'Hospitalet tournament, which features five Spanish teams - Joventut Badalona, Barcelona, Real Madrid, CB L'Hospitalet and Unicaja Malaga - as well as Slovenians Union Olimpija Ljubljana, German club Brose Baskets Bamberg and Fenerbahce Ulker Istanbul of Turkey.

Reigning champions Joventut will still be a strong team with the likes of Sergi Costa and Marc Bauza while Barcelona will be led by Marc Garcia as well as Stefano Peno and Ludde Hakanson. Real Madrid’s side features Yusta Santiago, Jonathan Barrerio and Andrej Magdevski.

Unicaja Malaga's team includes an intriguing 17-year-old in Romaric Belemene from Congo while hosts L'Hospitalet's main man will likely be Unai Garcia.

From the non-Spanish teams, Fenerbahce should have a lot of talent led mainly by Berk Ugurlu whereas Olimpija's main player should be Vasilije Vucetic and Bamberg's top weapon will be Leon Kratzer.

So that's a start-up course for the first two NIJT tournaments. Enjoy the action and prepare to see many future stars in the game.

David Hein

FIBA

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