| ALBERT SCHWEITZER TOURNAMENT 2010 REVIEW: Australia wins it all, Dario Saric named most prospective player |
| Written by Josip Stjepanović |
| Tuesday, 13 April 2010 16:03 |
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AST 2010 MOST PROSPECTIVE PLAYER: DARIO SARIC, CROATIA First of all, the 2010 edition of Albert Schweitzer Tournament (AST) stood in the shadow of some bigger events taking place in basketball world. The famous tournament for U18 national teams which is organized every two years by the German Basketball Association and the US Army started just few days after March Madness Final Four and finished on the same weekend when the Nike Hoops Summit was held in Portland. And it was also just the beginning of a great basketball summer, coming up with highlights like U20 European Championship in Croatia and theWorld Championship for seniors in Turkey. But nevertheless, the AST, in the past often the first bigger stage for players like Toni Kukoc or Arvydas Sabonis, once again showed us some very talented prospects, who will dominate the floors in the near future. Croatia faced some problems before tournament, when coach Ante Nazor wasn't able to take over his coaching part due to obligations for his team Capljina. He was well substituted by Boris Kurtovic, winner of bronze medal with Croatia's U19 at last summer world championship in New Zealand, but even Kurtovic and his staff had only six days for the whole tournament preparation. However the biggest impact on Croatia's team was the absence of PG Toni Katić and combo forward Filip Najev, both playing with KK Split against regulation from Croatia's A1 League. So Croatia entered the tournament with a small rooster (what in the end resulted in very tiny rotation during the tournament), including 1993 born Marko Ramljak and 1994 born Dario Saric, both starters. Under this given circumstances there is no reason to be annoyed with finishing seventh at the end. But let me mention just one thing before going on. Although the AST is known as well organized and as an awesome experience for the youngsters, there is a questionable characteristic not to draw the groups. This year we saw two very unequal group sides, with a couple of limited teams in Groups A and B, where host Germany, who started with two teams (U18 and U17), played against Japan, New Zealand and China. On the other side Croatia faced the United States, Argentina and France in group C, and Spain, Israel, Greece and Australia played each other in group D. Croatia's team started with a loss against USA (71-69), then beat Argentina in a very close game (82-81) and finally delivered their best tournament performance against a very talented French team (70-62). The two youngest players were also the two most outstanding, Saric and Ramljak led the team to the qualification round, especially the 16-year old Saric was able to dominate his opponents. Boris Barac, whose brother Stanko plays for Caja Laboral in Spain, added some important contribution under the rims. At the end Croatia finished the preliminary round on the top of Group C, but headed to the Qualification Round with 0-1, as the United States finished second. Already overachieving their aims, the boys lost to Australia and Spain, but beat Turkey in battle for place seven. At the end the winner of the 2010 AST edition was Australia beating Germany 68:51 in the final game. Australia, with three players on the All Tournament Team, was led by AST MVP Mitchell Creek who finished the game with 20pts, 7reb, 4as, 3stl. All in all, AST 2010 was a bit dissapointing, maily due to the lack of talent in comparison with last years. Some strong teams didn't took part, like Serbia and Lithuania, others participated without their best players, like USA and Italy. Few more words on Croatian prospects Saric and Ramljak. Dario Saric is for sure the biggest European prospect for the whole 1994 generation. He finished the tournament averaging 14,8 points, 6,5 rebounds, 2,8 assists and 1 steal per game and also got the Burkhard Wildermuth-Award for the most talented player in the tournament (He follows Turkish Big Man Enes Kantar). Marko Ramljak also delivered some nice games, but like many other players before him, he could face bigger problems because of his undefined position when entering senior basketball. Ramljak is a sort of combo forward, playing between SF and PF, with a nice shoot from outside, similar to Tomislav Zubcic, who is struggling this season after a great youth career. TOURNAMENT AWARDS
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