Espoo, Finland.

Espoo, in the suburbs of Helsinki, and its home team Espoo Basket Team (EBT) hosted May 10th-13th the U12 Superfinals of the European Girls Basketball League (EGBL). Four teams had qualified to the event after competing during the regular season which consisted of three 3-days-long tournaments in November, January and March. Out of the 8 inaugural teams the best 4 won the opportunity to battle for the coveted EGBL U12 champion title : two from Latvia (BS Ridzene and BS Jugla), one from Russia (SDJSOR Kupchinskij Olimp) and the home team from Finland (Espoo Basket Team).

The facility where the action took place was of higher standard as was the organization put behind the scenes by the Finnish players’ parents on behalf of EGBL. The players got to compete in a great gym with a beautiful wooden floor (court of Espoo’s senior team who finished runner-up in Finland’s top division, providing great incentive for their youth program), were reffed by international referees and the whole action could be followed on FibaLiveStats and was streamed on EBT’s YouTube channel. What a great way to introduce young players to the standards of international competition and for youth basketball fans such organizations provide more and more opportunities to follow youth development worldwide which must be praised and appreciated.

While planning is in full flow for the #BlueStar30 coming soon to Las Vegas – we're still going to absolute work in Europe 🔥🔥🔥@pierrepiotr_ is in Espoo, Finland at the U12 EGBL SuperFinals – a week after being with @basketmedia365 at the U13 Finals in Riga!

Stay tuned 🏀 pic.twitter.com/m7ozX4Sv0n

— BlueStar Media (@BlueStarMedia1) May 11, 2018

As far as basketball was concerned, the age category understandably implied numerous approximations and mistakes but motivation, dedication, hard work and passion were abslotuely not lacking. On that matter the players showed great attitude and strong focus throughout the tournament. But the overall quality of action lacked fluidity and skills, often leading to more jumpball, turnovers and uncontrolled shots than remarkable plays, and even sometimes, points. Nevertheless in between hazardous and halting plays, some raw quality, both individual and collective, was to be witnessed and noticed.

The tournament had the shape of a F4 but only the shape as all teams played each other in a group phase with 3 games each over the first two days in order to establish who would qualify for the title game and who would battle for 3rd spot on the last day. Again, as in Riga for the U13 Superfinals, I am not a fan of a format where players have to play twice in one day. I know the players are young and the fatigue shouldn’t be that much of a factor but in the end it is as all 2nd games were less impactful this time around too. The idea of having more action to watch is understandable but the quality of action suffers of it in the end. Plus in this case the title game match-up as well as the 3rd place game were set after Day 1 leaving the action of Day 2 anecdotical, impacting the overall statistics with some players sitting out and other shining beyond their talent.  A classic semi-finals + final/3rd place game format in 2 or 3 days would be more impactful and make more sense to me.

This being said, SDJSOR Kupchinskij Olimp entered this tournament as favorites since they had played in all 3 finals of the regular season’s gatherings, winning two and losing one by 2pts only while missing key players. Espoo Basket Team and BS Ridzene were the main underdogs. EBT played in two finals (1-1) and BS Ridzene reached the final in one of the 3 tournaments. BS Jugla never finished higher, and only once, than 3rd.

From the very first second of their first game it was obvious that SDJSOR Kupchinskij Olimp were favorites for a reason. It would soon turn out that their opponents in that game, BS Jugla, were the weakest team, by far, of the 4. Nevertheless the display offered by the Russians was impressive and had me very excited about the outcome and content of these Superfinals. Slightly too fast though as the Russians would not repeat this feat and none of the other three teams would reach it either.  The Russians, in that first game, were extremely impressive producing an almost dribbling-free half-court basketball full of inspired off-the-ball movements/cuts, great spacing, quality shot selection, nice transition basketball and patience in the half court to find the open player. It was visible that the team had a plan and had put in a great amount of work. After investigation I discovered that the Russian team was a special “student-athlete program” which provided the players with 6 basketball practices per week, extra sport activities such as swimming and gymnastics and a special schedule at school. There is no secret…

It was hard to miss in that game the impact of MVP-to-be center Juliana Petrova (2006, C, 5’8) who fully used her size advantage to showcase her very promising frontcourt fundamentals and great positionning under the basket. While she still lacks strength to fully use her body correctly, she certainly has the potential to impact the game in the future, not least in defense where she manages to stay out of foul trouble while being a permanent dissuasive force. Svetlana Yurkevich (2007, PG, 4’7) a pocketsize PG who despite her size fared well taking care of the ball thanks to strong, both-handed dribbling skills as well as a sweet change of pace. Her impact doesn”t yet translate in figures on the statsheet but she does control the rhythm of play quite nicely and doesn’t turn the ball over while showing valuable patience and reliability in the half court. Amina Krasnikova (2006, SF, 5’6) is a strong G/SF with promising fundamentals (eurostep, shooting range etc.) and interesting finishing abilities but her drive is a bit one-sided and she will need to address a lack of versatility to become a better player once her strong body frame will cease to give her an edge over her opponents. Anastasiya Samylkina (2006, SF, 5’6) is a less at first-sight remarkable player but her simple, unfancy playing form hides solid fundamentals, a good feel for the game, a promising mid-range shooting capacity and an overall high basketball IQ. She doesn’t look to shine and her work ethic might help her develop into a key player in coming years as her learning curve seems considerable. Kseniya Rusniyak (2006, SF, 5’6) is quite an unraffinated player at this point but with a body frame, athleticism and good mentality that make her a prospect to follow.

BS Jugla could unfortunately only count on one of the most promising player of the tournament to compete against the Russians, a real “Jack of all trades”: Megija Zeltina (2006, G/SF, 5’6) who unfortunately was without any consequent back-up to take some responsability off of her back. She has size, skills, athleticism and talent. She dribbles well, can shoot (even from beyond the arc), rebounds etc. Her defensive approach needs improvement but she definitely is a player to follow. Hopefully she will at some point play on a stronger team which will help her develop further. Overall Jugla looked very unconfident, with their guards struggling to take care of the ball and the players often showing signs of panic as turnovers piled up. Their empathy-free coach didn’t necessarily help address the challenges her players faced. It took them 13min (over a quarter and a half) to score their first FG, having only scored 1FT in Q1 and another in Q2 before this first basket… The game ended on a sounding 23-52 score in the favor of Olimp.

Espoo BT  and BS Ridzene were the two next teams to face each other, in what looked like a real semi-final with the winner making a huge step towards the qualification for the title game. Espoo who was playing for the first time of the season on homecourt (the three regular season tournaments took place in Riga, Latvia (twice) and in Tallinn, Estonia) had an extra motivation and started the game on the right foot taking an early lead, 14-9, after Q1. The Finns were clearly taller and stronger than the Latvians who mostly relied on their energetic but short guard duo of Emilija Skudra (2006, G, 5’3) and Estere Petrus (2006, G, 5′) who were already part of Ridzene U13 team in Riga at the beginning of May. Espoo’s option to go for a full court press in defense disrupted the Latvians as it is something unusual to do in Latvia before the U15 category. The Ridzene players struggled to adapt to the situation for longer periods of the game and it is only thanks to a nice series of 3FG in Q2 mixed with a poor FT percentage from Espoo that both teams went into the halftime break on an even score of 20-20. Ridzene to compensate the physical gap committed many fouls on which Espoo didn’t capitalize, even letting their opponents take the lead at the end of Q3 25-27. Eventually the Latvians lost Emilija Skudra (2006, G, 5’3) to 5 fouls at the same time where one of Espoo’s talent, center Alli Niinisto (2006, C, 5’8), finally decided to wake up and use efficiently her size advantage posting a series of basket on her way to a game-high 11pts which proved to be enough to see off the Latvian side. Espoo walked away with a precious and crucial 38-33 W, opening the doors to the final.

Alli Niinisto was complemented in the paint by the promising & above-average athletic PF Enna Tikka (2006, PF, 5’5) who size, vertical jump and length give an edge over the rest of the players. One element that explains her great form is that she is an equally good, if not better, gymnast, a sport she might unfortunately give up basketball for in the coming months. Let’s hope not as her gracious and tonic style works just fine on a basketball court. Her movements are super balanced, she sets very clean screens, senses where to be on the court and rebounds well. She isn’t scared of attacking the basket and stays very focused in defense though she often struggles to stay out of foul trouble. In the backcourt Sanni Nelskyla (2007, G, 5’4) and Suvi Ahtola (2006, G, 5’2) offered similar profiles with both players looking smart and athletic with an unselfish approach to the game. Reliable and solid in defense, they have the potential if they put in the necessary work to continue developping into interesting players. Unselfish was a trademark of the finnish team with Nella Peura (2006, SF/PF, 5’5) proving to be a reliable, hard working and strong SF option with a lot of passion who doesn’t look to shine but makes sure the intangibles are taken care of.

BS Ridzene was mostly all about Estere Petrus (2006, G, 5′) and Emilija Skudra (2006, G, 5’3) as mentioned earlier. The former’s biggest flaw would be her size: a pocketsize lefty PG who until this point compensates her height issue with strong fundamentals (especially a fine left-hand crossover), very decent shooting form and interesting court-vision. Her mindset is on point as she never stops fighting, not least in defense, but she has the tendency to overplay a bit and she definitely needs to improve her right hand as she might become easy to defend if she continues to use mainly the left one. The latter is slightly less skilled but has an equally big fighter-mentality even sometimes demonstrating tough character. Overall an interesting athlete but also on the shorter side. Petra Paula Krumulda (2006, G, 5’3) and Anete Dirina (2006, G, 5′) were 2 other interesting backcourt options for Ridzene. Krumulda is a nice versatile, unfancy guard who has a great feel for the game allowing her to know where to be on the court and what to do. Dirina doesn’t necessarily jump to the eye straight away but turns out to be a promising player. Not yet confident to display what she shows during warm-ups or on the side while doing tough dribbling drills, nevertheless basketball is a sport that fits her profile well, unfortunately she will move out of Riga and will no longer benefit from the challenging and quality structure of Ridzene. Hopefully she will continue working her skills on her own although her coach fears it might not be the case putting a stop to her learning curve. Finally center Aleksandra Sprugaine (2006, C, 5’6) is a player who with a decent amount of work could evolve into something interesting. For now her decent fundamentals are not enough to make an impact player of her but there is some potential.

In the second games of Day 1, Ridzene didn’t manage, looking out of sorts, to create the upset against Olimp (28-36) with the Russian coach even resting some of her main players for big parts of the game, while Espoo didn’t need to force it at all to rout Jugla 15-51.  The two winning teams would meet superfluously on Day 2 and again on Day 3 to battle for the champion title this time. In that Day 2 match-up Espoo opted to play their B team against Olimp who nevertheless only manage to win by 10pts on a scarce 12-22 final score… Ridzene defeated Jugla 45-34 with again only Megija Zeltina helping Jugla not to lose by a huge margin thanks to a 24pts-11reb performance.

The title game started the best way possible for Espoo with the hometeam very focused and aggressive running solid plays in offense while Olimp was suffering from poor ballhandling and bad shots selection. The game was tensed and chopped with an incredible number of fouls being called. After scoring 4pts in 2min, Espoo managed only 1 extra point before the end of Q1 while Olimp could count on Petrova, Samylkina and and Krasnikova to recover from their poor start, 5-14. Yet the players were struggling to make the game look like basketball, the pressure of a championship game took over quality of play. At halftime both teams had almost as many fouls as points 15-22 score for Olimp ; 11-13 fouls! Enna Tika had already 3 fouls at the end of Q1 (before fouling out at the beginning of Q3)… Espoo started Q2 on a 8-0 run in 5min before Olimp’s own 6-0. The seconf half saw Olimp always pull away from Espoo only to see the finnnish team threatening to level the score back until the very end where Olimp managed to eventually keep a very close margin of 2pts, 32-34, to claim the 2017-2018 EGBL U12 champion title!

2017-2018 EGBL U12 Champions: SDJSOR Kupchinskij Olimp (Russia) (c) Hanna Ahtola

Results

May 11th

1/ SDJSOR Kupchinskij Olimp – BS Jugla 52-23

Espoo BT – BS Ridzene 38-33

2/ BS Ridzene – SDJSOR Kupchinskij Olimp 28-36

BS Jugla – Espoo BT 15-51

May 12th

3/ BS Jugla – BS Ridzene 34-45

Espoo BT – SDJSOR Kupchinskij Olimp 12-22

May 13th

Final

Espoo BT  – SDJSOR Kupchinskij Olimp 32-34

3rd place

BS Ridzene – BS Jugla 58-40

My MVP

Juliana Petrova (SDJSOR Kupchinskij Olimp)

(c) Hanna Ahtola

My All-Tournament Team

Estere Petrus (BS Ridzene)

Anastasiya Samylkina (SDJSOR Kupchinskij Olimp)

Megija Zeltina (BS Jugla)

Alli Niinisto (Espoo Basket Team)

Juliana Petrova (SDJSOR Kupchinskij Olimp)

My All-Tournament 2nd Team

Emilija Skudra (BS Ridzene)

Sanni Nelskyla (Espoo Basket Team)

Anete Dirina (BS Ridzene)

Svetlana Yurkevich (SDJSOR Kupchinskij Olimp)

Enna Tikka (Espoo Basket Team)