Mega Vizura (U-20) and Canarias Basketball Academy (U-18) became the first winners of the Rinus de Jong Invitational tournament, held this week in Hertogenbosh (Netherlands). Serbians and Spaniards - although most of their players are foreigners - earned the titles of an event with intriguing prospects: Dutch Shane Hammink ('94), Montenegrin Nikola Ivanovic ('94) -invited by Mega Vizura - Serbian Vasilije Micic ('94), Czech Martin Kriz ('93), Slovakian Boris Bojanovsky ('93) from CBA, Serbian-Turkish Dusan Cantekin ('90),...
In the U-20 competition Mega Vizura beat Canarias Basketball Academy (CBA) in the big final (80-77). 2.08 center Stevan Jelovac ('89) tallied 26 points to lead the win and earn also the Best Defensive Player Award. His teammate Vasilije Micic ('94) got the Rising Star Award, while guard Pavle Reljic ('93), also from Mega, won the 3 pointers contest. In the game for the third place Dutchmen of Eiffeltowers Den Bosch beat Belgium’s Soba Antwerp (64-76).
And what about U-18? Canarias Basketball Academy beat Netherlands NT (89-75). USK Future Stars of Prague ended third after winning Telekom Bonn (73-60).
One of the big names of the tournament was guard Paul Candiff ('93), from WCAA Giants and playing for U-18 Dutch NT. In the last game of the group stage they beat Telekom Bonn (78-114) earning a spot for the final behind a crazy 50-points performance of Candiff (5/9 twos, 12/16 threes and 4/5 FT). In the final, the guard tallied 18, the best Dutch scorer too. Some days ago the same player won the Altia X-Mas Tournament 3-point contest, at Kortrijk (Belgium).