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To opt for Italy at this margin seems like a bold choice at first, but when taking into consideration they play the United Arab Emirates I believe the margin could have been 10 or so points higher. The Emirates are participating at this U17 WC only because they're hosting it. That country doesn't even have a team for players this age. They didn't even have a coach before July, when the players gathered to spend a few weeks practicing. They have never played together before. They lost to Bahrain, who are among the worst Asian teams, by 40 points a few days ago. They lost to Greece (mostly substitutes played) by 75 points, and to Lebanon in Dubai...At that tournament in Dubai, Spain beat Egypt by more than 50 points. Spain is comparable to Italy quality-wise, while Egypt is at least twice as good as UAE. Italy are among the best European teams in this age group, they have all the top players on the disposal here, and I think they should be able to win by more than 70 points. Never has it happen before that the host of the WC is such a weak team - the UAE don't have a single player taller than 182cm. They probably aren't capable of scoring more than 30 points against Italy, which should do for this handicap. Details

France are definitely a better team than Belgium but the crucial thing for this tip is the fact that the Frenchmen have only recently started their WC preparations. They have handled their basic part and now they'll start their prep games. The Belgians, on the other hand, are in full swing. They have been preparing for Eurobasket 2015 qualifications which start in 10 days and are getting close to their preparation cycle. They have already played 7 games and their form is obviously on the rise. A few days ago, they crushed the Brits by 104-79 and 79-64 before that, while they lost against excellent Italy by only 68-74. One can expect the Frenchmen to be a bit slow and they will not have Diaw who got a few more days to rest. It has been known for some time that Parker, Ajinca, Seraphin, Petro and Noah won't play for France this summer, while Mahinki will not get too much playing time either. Their coach has said that the Belgians might be a bit too difficult opponent for the first game and that he expects his team to improve in time for the tournament in Pau. The Belgians have their absent players as well but they have been playing together for a while, they're well-organized and will surely do their best against the reigning European champions. Details

Russia beat Spain in a friendly by 71-68 but Russia's lack of organization was visible against Serbia yesterday. They play a fast game without much order and their defense was very poor. They had 69 shots. Spain also play a fast game and had 74 shots against Montenegro yesterday and they went over the 70-point margin, despite their 4/25 three-point efficiency. Two year ago at the EC for cadets, Spain beat Russia by 88-64 and similar squads were involved. Spain beat Serbia by 81-71 at a strong tournament in Konya, they played a game against Turkey with almost 170 points and they lost by a narrow margin. I believe both teams will play a fast game, much like yesterday, and this margin should go through. Details

BiH will have tough task maintaining their Division A status. They didn't do too well in the friendlies. They lost against Montenegro (Division B last year) by 54-88, 52-62, and 49-69 and got one 72-70 win. At the Albert Schweitzer tournament, they lost against Spain by -30, against France by -29...Most of their players have spent last few years playing in Division B for cadets. Greece have had very good preparations. They won all 5 games, including the one against Spain in Spain. They beat the English by some 40 points on 2 occasions, they beat Italy in Italy. They beat Bosnia last year by 27 points and they seem even stronger as they have filled their teams with the best five players from the team that won the bronze medal in the cadet competition. They kept their coach Papatheodorou from last year and he knows it's important to get a good start of the tournament. They slipped up at the start last year and now they want to leave a better impression. Details

France beat Serbia yesterday by 16 points and have a great chance of securing the top spot in Group E, which means they would face the weakest team from the other quarterfinal group and would avoid Spain until the potential final. At the moment, France, Russia and Serbia have a 3-1 score, but it's clear that France will take the first spot if they beat Lithuania as they have beaten Russia and Serbia. France have the best defense on this tournament while the Lithuanians have the worst. They lost against Russia by 43 points and France and Russia are on a par. Lithuania are the last-placed team in the group with a 0-4 score and it's clear they will go into the relegation battle. Today's game is not really important to them and the one on Friday against the best team from Group G, which includes the teams eliminated in the first round. They might even make a few compromises today and rest their crucial players, which is a well-known practice on these tournaments. The game against Russia showed how much they struggle against tough defenses, and there's no defense here better than the French defense. Details

The Portuguese team almost beat France prior to the European Championship, then defeated Sweden decisively in the 1st round, only to practically give away the victory against the Czechs with errors in the final moments. Then came a somewhat poor performance against strong Italy, followed by a very good game against Spain last night, with just a 5 point lag in the last quarter. Croatia lost to that Spanish team by 67 points. The Croatian junior team later recovered, but scored their only win against the Dutch, barely managing a comeback after lagging by 19 points. Yesterday against Italy their lack of true centers and bench players (no scoring for 36 minutes) really showed. Periša is injured, Rački is struggling with an ankle injury which then influences their perimeter game. The Croatian team have huge ups and downs: the Italian team, for example, scored a 26-0 series against them. The main Portuguese players are centers, at over 190cm, which could be a big problem for the Croatian team. Tomorrow's game against the Czechs will probably be more important to them, as a victory there certainly gets them through to the next round, as they would have a better mutual score against the Czechs and the Dutch in case there is a comparison of the three teams. The Portuguese will only advance if they win the remaining two matches. Portugal beat Croatia last year at the junior EuroChampionship played in Vinkovci and Vukovar. Now in Matosinhos they are supported by 2500 loud fans, and perhaps even more, which will greatly motivate the team. The bookies are offering Portugal to win with a -3.5 or -4.5 handicap with decent odds. Details

Though the margin of 124 points seems to be set too high for junior female basketball, I think it is, in fact, set too low for the game style both Lithuania and Russia have. They play fast pace basketball, with a lot of field shots, and attacks that are quite fast as a result of it. The Lithuanian junior team have so far been doing much better in offense than the opponents. They're average is 65 points, which makes them the forth best team in the EC. With an average of 65,7 points, their opponents the Russians are third best. The problem for Lithuania is defense. Thy concede 68 points on average (second worst), and Russia should thus not have problem enforcing their typical game. They are the better team here, and a nervous and close game is not very likely to happen here. Lithuania played a game with almost 150 points scored against Serbia, a team much similar to Russia. In the game against Greece, 135 points were scored, and in the last round against the defense-oriented Belgium, 116 points were scored. But, Russia are far better than Belgium defense-wise. Details

Even though Portugal are huge outsiders of this game in terms of odds, there are many reasons why I believe the Swedes are not such favorites. This EC is played in Portugal. The Swedes beat Portugal in the first round of EC but the Scandinavians don't have their main players like Eriksson, Hanson or Mirković. Sweden's performances have been very variable in preparations. They beat not so convincing Netherlands by 55-51 and weakened Belgium by 65-60, but they lost against Poland and Russia by a convincing margin, and they lost against Latvia at the Baltic Cup, and Latvia are in Division B. They struggled a lot in three games against Lithuanians, especially in offense. Portugal have played their three games without two main centers Kostourkova and Guimaraes, who are their main players. They have recently played U-20 EC in Division B and got great figures and helped their team get promoted. The only game in which Portuguese had a full squad was the one against France two days ago which France won by a narrow margin of 63-61. Details

When you look at the preparations and their roster, Poland definitely are a team that can hope to reach U-19 competition next year as they have to reach Top 5 here. At a strong tournament in Reze, France, Poland lost only against Belgium (51-61). After that they beat Russia (78-56), Sweden (61-47) and Croatia (75-54). They played two more games in Troyes against strong France. They won the first game by 52-50 and they lost the second by 53-61 even though they were down by only 53-55 with 20 seconds to go. At home they faced Lithuania and put up very convincing performances (78-51, 84-39). The Dutch did poorly in preparations. At the mention Reze tournament, they beat France but lost to Croatia (41-59), Turkey (45-69) and Sweden (51-55). Two days before this EC started, they lost by 20 points against Belgium and before that by 42-70 against the Czech Republic, although they got two narrow wins against the Czechs as well. They are without two important players from last year and this generation won 12th and 14th spot in earlier tournaments, which is not too convincing. Details

Two best defenses of the championship are facing in the final. The French concede 47 points per match, the Spaniards 50.3. They already played against each other in the first round. It was a very defensively oriented match where Spaniards only had 43 field goal, and the opponents 44. It ended with the Spaniards' win, 48-42. Today, they're playing for gold and we should definitely expect a tough and aggressive match. These two teams faced each other in the preliminary match for the EC. Then, Spain were better without Ndour, 56-49. The Spaniards have 111 points per match in this tournament, and the French 107.6. Spain went under this margin only against the defensively strong Turkey and Poland, and had 110 against the fast Italians in the semifinal yesterday. The French defeated the best offense of the championship, Serbian, 50-44 yesterday, which tells enough about their game style. Details

The Czech are the weakest team of the EC defensively, conceding 68 points per match, and Ukraine are next to last in the category, conceding 63 points per match. These teams score about 60 points and play very fast with short offenses. Both teams secured staying in the A Division which was their main goal, and can play relaxed today because it probably doesn't really matter whether they end up 11th or 12th. Yesterday, the Czech played a match with 133 points against the completely defensively oriented Turks, and the Ukrainians a match with 143 points against the defensively oriented Dutch. Both teams had over 120 points per match on this EC, and considering the circumstances, they should go over that margin today. Details

Bulgaria had a tough defeat against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the B Division of the European Championship yesterday, but that's part of why I decided to write this prediction. If Bulgarians resisted better to the objectively boring Bosnians, the margin would probably be over 30 points today... their opponents today are the Romanians, probably the worst team that ever played in the U20, at least lately. Just look at their results - they lost to Portugal by 27, to BiH by almost 60, to Lithuania by 20-ish, to Hungary by 41, to Israel by 32, to Britain by 30, and even to Norwegians whose basketball is almost nonexistent. But, the Romanians were nonexistent till last year, when they took the last place of the B Division of the EC, but they were a lot more serious then, and were losing matches with an acceptable points difference (to Britain by 2, Belgium by 10, Czech by 12, Portugal by 3). One of their worst defeats last year was against Bulgaria (54-74). Their problem is that all the main Romanian players from last year left (Ursu, Craciun...), and it shows on the results this year. Bulgaria have almost the same team as last year (Kostova, DImitrova, Hristova...), and it's clear that the quality difference between these two is much bigger now. Coach Tsankov said that nothing worked for them yesterday when they lost to BiH, and he also mentioned the referees. This is women's basketball, and the young Bulgarians obviously lost motivation after they got behind. But, the impression they left on this EC isn't bad. Israel, who were defeating Romania by 32, were defeated by 30 by the Bulgarians, the Bulgarians also defeated Norway by 20, Britain by 5, and the three defeats were in the thriller final moments (Lithuania by 3, Germany by 3, Portugal by 4). This B Division championship is played in Bulgaria, and that's where they defeated Greece three times, Greece who are among the weaker teams of the A Division. The Bulgarians were very convincing and defeated them by 30 twice. Details

Many thought that the Turks were the candidates to take the medals but they lost all 3 games in round 2 (two against very strong French and Spanish teams) and they are facing a very important match against Greece. If they win, they will have secured their place in Division A and if they lose they will find themselves in a tricky situation in which they have to win the remaining two games. Greece have shown little to nothing so far, they still haven't won a single game and their average is 45 points per game. The Turks have the best defense (51.8 points per game allowed) and it's clear the Greeks have a mountain to climb. On the other hand, Turkey have been far from brilliant in offense and their average is 54.7 points. France play a similarly aggressive game and Greece lost against them by 36-67. They lost against Spain by 39-55 and the Turks went over this margin only against teams like Latvia and the Czech Republic. Turkey's average game is 106.5 points and Greece's 107.5, but when you factor in the importance of this game, this seemingly low margin becomes very solid for a moderate stake. Details

These are the best two defenses on this tournament and they play a very physical game with lots of pressure an the very low margin of 105 points is definitely worth taking. France allow an average of only 44.5 points and Turkey allow 49.5. They have played twice during preparations. Turkey won in France by 57-51 while France won in Italy by 56-41. Last year at U-20 EC, they played a 70-point game although in slightly different conditions. This was an important game as both teams have a 2-1 score and a win would secure the next stage and a defeat would make things very difficult and they would have to decide things in the last round. Russia have a better offense than Turkey and France played a 55-51 match against them yesterday. Turkey went over this margin against Latvia and Czech Republic, but these are very offensively minded teams with porous defense. They won against Belgium by 48-42, Russia 53-47. France lost against Spain by 42-48, and beat Russia by 55-51. They played a 111-point game against fast Latvians and a 103-point game against Greece. Details

Even though Spain haven't lost a match at this EC, they have been far from impressive. They barely beat France, they beat Greece by 17 points and the Greeks are the weakest team here. They struggled against Latvia whom they beat by 6 points and then beat the Czechs by 12 points, but they struggled once again and beat their opponents in the final stages. And this Russia beat the Czechs with a lot less trouble. Russia should be motivated today as they lost against France and Turkey by a narrow margin and have 1-2 score, while the Spaniards have secured the quarterfinals. Last year, these two teams had almost identical squads and Spain won after a very tight game. In comparison to that game, Russia have improved their defense (new coach) and the Spaniards are still looking for their form from last year. Details

Ukraine have so far not shown they are able to put up any resistance against good teams. They beat Sweden in the first round but had not real chance against Serbia and Slovakia. They seem very poor in defense and they depend too much on their center Uro-Nile. She should struggle a lot against the Dutch as their opponents mostly play zone defense and they have excellent Treffers as the center. In addition, the Netherlands have shown much more so far. They beat Italy by 24, Belarus by 2, and Ukraine and Belarus are more or less on a par. After all, Ukraine beat Belarus by 57-55 and then lost 55-64 in prep games. Uraine also lost against Lithuania who are in Division B (58-66 and 60-75) and the Dutch should dominate this affair. This is an important game for the Dutch as they will face Serbia and Slovakia afterwards. Aggressive performance won't suit Ukraine who don't have too many options up front. Details

France are the team whose game least suits the Greek team. There are two main things that Greece have problems with - the first one if the France's physical power, and the fact they're the tallest team in the tournament. The second one is the tough French defense, which limited Spain to 48 points in the first, and Latvia to 43 in the second game. Greece's problems with offense are well known. They scored less than 40 points against Spain yesterday, lost by 17, and in the first round, Latvia beat them by 13 points. France beat Latvia by 25 points yesterday. I expect something similar to happen today against Greece - a game like the one they played in the preparation period. France won 56-27. Simply put, the French defense is too good for the Greek inefficient offense. Other than the convincing win, a good option is the team under for Greece, no matter how low the margin might seem. Details

Given the importance of the game, I think Russia will do their best once again and confirm how good they are. The situation is clear. Turkey should beat Belgium quite easily, which means this game will decided who has a win for the next round. It would be a disaster for Russia if they don't have at least two points for the next round. No points would mean they meet either France or Spain, the main candidates for the title. The quarter final would, in that case, be very hard to reach. The Czech Republic finished the job by beating Belgium. Russia beat that same Belgium by almost 30 points yesterday, displaying a game much better than in the first round. Russia and the Czech Republic are quite different quality-wise. It is particularly important that the Czechs don't play good defense, and the Russians are known to do better against less tough defenses. On the whole, I expect a completely motivated Russia, and their convincing win. Details

The fact that Serbia has secured the second round and four points for it is crucial as it makes the game against Sweden unimportant in terms of results and will give them a chance to rest the team. There's no doubt that Serbia are a much better team than Sweden but Serbia will make a compromise. They will spare some of their best players who have played the most so far, like Stanković, Stanaćev, Crvendakić, and Serbia without them isn't so dominant and Sweden could represent a threat for them. Serbia's idea is understandable as this game means nothing in terms of result and they will cross paths with three very strong teams (Netherlands, Poland, Italy) and they want to avoid injuries. Sweden have shown very little so far, particularly their best player Hersler. Without Stanković in the game, they should have more space in the paint and improve their overall game. Details

Russia started the EC by defeat against Turkey, which could be described as a surprise, but not too big of a one. It showed once again that the Russians have problems against the aggressive Turkish defense. They couldn't deal with it in the paint and the tall centers Scetina and Razeva were left with humble numbers. Today, they're playing against a lot weaker Belgium who couldn't surprise the Czech last night, and Russia are a lot more convincing than the Czech. Belgium played in the B Division last year, and lost all the seeds in the mean time. There aren't many players who have experience playing internationally. The coach Phillip Mestdagh admitted that the preparatory period wasn't the best and that the team aren't doing their best, which was obvious against the Czech. The main problem is that they lack a true center and the point guard, since De Baets didn't have one assist yesterday, and her substitute, the 17 year old Ouahabi, didn't come in at all. This is a great chance for the Russian centers. Russia defeated top teams in the preparatory period, like Serbia and Turkey, they don't have the right to take a wrong step today, and the Belgians shouldn't be a problem for them. Details