May 25, 2012
Kaunas NIJT event tips off Friday
NIJT Kaunas Tournament poster

The third Nike International Junior Classification Tournament of the season gets underway this weekend in Kaunas, Lithuania, with eight teams from as many countries vying for the title. This marks the first season for Kaunas on the NIJT slate and it does so with a showcase of young talent, including host Zalgiris Kaunas, which reached the title game of the NIJT Finals at the 2011 Turkish Airlines Euroleague Final Four in Barcelona. The champion of the Kaunas event will qualify for the 2012 NIJT finals at the Final Four in Istanbul.

The games run from Friday, February 10 through Sunday, February 12, at Zalgirio Arena, which also serves as Zalgiris’s home court and hosted the EuroBasket 2011 medal rounds. Each team will play three games over the course of Friday and Saturday, with Sunday reserved for the classifications games, highlighted by the final, which is scheduled for 16:30 CET.

Six players from the Zalgiris squad that won silver medals in Barcelona last season are on the preliminary roster for this tournament, including forward Marius Grigonis, who is among the big names to keep an eye on at the event. Other players to follow are Khadeem Lattin of Spain’s Canarias Basketball Academy; Clint Capela from Elan Chalon of France; and Rasmus Larsen from Denmark’s Vaerlose BBK. The other teams competing are USK Future Stars, Czech Republic; Topsportschool VBL, Belgium; BC Khimki Moscow Region, Russia; and VEF Riga, Latvia.

KK Zagreb CO and Lietuvos Rytas won the first two Nike International Junior Classification Tournaments, in Rome and L’Hospitalet, respectively, to secure their spots in Istanbul. The fourth and final classification tourney is set for Belgrade, Serbia, later this month. As always, you can follow the action online at www.euroleague.net, where live scoring, game reports and complete statistics will be available for each game.

See Kaunas Tournament
Thursday, February 09, 2012
Euroleague.net
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