After One More In Sakarya

TBF’s International U16 Tournament is becoming a tradition for Sakarya but it hasi already become a traditional tournament for young class.  We had a week full of basketball and watched the players about whom we are going to say “this guy was like that when he was 16 in Sakarya.”

This was the 4th U16 Tournament that i worked for. Unfortunately, last 3 tournaments which are organised in Sakarya, are not even close to year 2011. But you should be lucky to catch so many teams had good generations in a year. So 2011 is still special for me. It is better to separate the article  into two: Turkish National team and the stars of the tournament.

First of all I have to say that our U16 generation does not have a star player. We have a good team defence and good offence that comes after good defences. In most part of the tournament, our defence was good but we looked for a star. Because, when the game is locked up, star players help you to win. Two players stepped forward on statistics. One is Ömer Faruk Yurtseven who was very effective inside and in blocks. Second one is Ömer Utku Al who was the leader of Assists. These two players showed their skills also in last year’s U16 Turkey Championship. But they didn’t improved themselves as I expected, I hope before summer, they will gear up. The biggest absence for the team was a trustable long distance scorer. Team had a lot of  opportunities from the back of 3 point line but couldn’t finish them succesfully. Season is still continue, I’m sure that our players will be better after playing more games together. This was just the first tournament but wasn’t effective.

We watched some special players this year again. Those players were Arthurs Strautins and Rodions Kurucs from Latvia, Kostja Mushidi from Germany, Bathiste Tchouaffe from France and Ognjen Carapic from Montenegro.

Arthurs Strautins became score leader of the tournament and helped his team to become champion of tournament. He trusted his shots very much that he has finished most of the fast breaks. He was also driving in so strongly and converted one so many times. Second star of Latvia was Kurucs. He is a star that every team needs. He is a good scorer and the leader on the court. When the team needed him, he stepped forward and took the responsibility. He contributed to every part of the game for his team.

Mushidi from Germany has big size advantage for U16 level. Whenever he wanted to drive in, he made it easily and scored most of the time. Together with his power, he is a good shooter both inside and outside. He has almost won Turkey game by himself.

Carapic came to Sakarya second time. He has definitely improved his game and his playing style is similar to Teodosic’s. He can control all the court on offence and can give effective passes. However, he was unlucky because he didn’t have any supporter on the court in Sakarya.

The last words for Tchouaffe. It’s so hard to calculate how many games I watched and commantated. But this boy gave us a memory for all life. He scored four 3 point shots in a row in 2 minutes. He was playing extremely well but the rivals stopped him by injuring. Therefore, we couldn’t watch him again after this show. He is an extremely  good scorer from every point of the court.

In the end, we watched live our future basketball stars. 5-6 years later, this stars will start to rule European Basketball. So we were the lucky guys to watch them before most of the basketball lovers.