14/04/2016
David Hein's Eye on the Future
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U17 Worlds Draw provides possible dream USA v Canada final

REGENSBURG (David Hein’s Eye on the Future) – Thank you to the draw gods as the 2016 FIBA U17 World Championship could see a final between United States and Canada or USA v Australia.

It’s tantalising just thinking about a possible United States v Canada final on July 3 in Zaragoza. And USA against Australia would be a repeat of the previous two U17 Worlds finals – both won by the United States.

So before we go too much into detail about the draw, here is the breakdown of the groups.

Two of the six FIBA U17 Worlds debutants were greeted by the draw gods with a chance to face the three-time reigning champions United States in the group stage as Turkey and Chinese Taipei are also in Group A.

The fourth team in Group A is Egypt, and the African powers will be looking to improve on their best-ever showing of 11th place from 2010.

Group B houses the hosts Spain as well as European U16 runners-up Lithuania, the third placed team from FIBA Americas Argentina and newcomers Mali – the runners-up from Africa.

Group C promises to see a dog fight in every game as it features two-time U17 Worlds runners-up Australia, surprise European outfit and debutants Finland, three-time quarter-finalists China and emerging powerhouse Canada.

Not to be left out is Group D, which includes the European champions Bosnia and Herzegovina, who will be making their global competition debut as well as European stronghold France. Korea come into the tournament as first-time FIBA Asia U16 champions while Dominican Republic are the sixth country making their debut.

With Groups A and B as well as Groups C and D crossing over for the Round of 16, there are a couple of interesting match-ups possible in the first knockout games.

Turkey will likely encounter one of Spain, Lithuania and Argentina. Turkey would definitely have some big motivation since Spain beat them in the third place game at the 2014 FIBA U16 European Championship and Lithuania knocked them off in the 2015 FIBA U16 European Championship Semi-Finals.

The top possible Round of 16 match-up between Group C and D teams would probably be China against Korea. The Chinese won the first three ever FIBA Asia U16 Championship titles but then lost to Korea in the 2015 FIBA Asia U16 Championship Semi-Finals and crashed to an embarrassing third place. The Chinese would definitely love to exact a fair bit of revenge on the Koreans for that defeat.

France taking on any of the four teams from Group C – Australia, Finland, China and Canada – would definitely be intriguing and Finland could square off against either of the Europeans from Group D - Bosnia and Herzegovina or France.

This column started off in euphoria that we could see a USA v Canada or USA v Australia final. Either match-up however could already come up at the Quarter-Final stage as the second placed team in Group C could eventually face the Group A winner in the last eight.

Group C’s winner could not face off against the Group A winner until the final. In case you were wondering, the third-placed team in Group C also would move to the other side of the bracket from the Group A winner.

Also on the other side of the bracket is the winner of Group B – which means hosts Spain could avoid the Americans until the final if they take top honors in Group B.

While the home fans would love a USA v Spain final and another United States v Australia final would definitely be cool historically, the dream final really is a repeat of last summer’s FIBA Americas U16 Championship title game.

The Canadians are slowly but surely producing a similar depth of talent at the youth categories as their neighbours to the south – something that the Americans saw loud and clear in the U16 final last summer.

The elite Canadians are also playing among the elite Americans at high schools (and colleges) in the United States and thriving – see 1998-born Canadian Lindell Wigginton helping Oak Hill Academy to the 2016 US high school national title by scoring 16 points in the final against La Lumiere, who had 1997-born Canadian Brandon Cyrus as one of the team leaders.

The semi-finalists – and three-time reigning US champions – Montverde Academy feature three Canadians who will likely be playing in Spain in RJ BarrettSimi Shittu and Marcus Carr.

Now that the draw has taken place, we know when who might face whom. June 23 cannot come soon enough.

David Hein

FIBA

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David Hein

David Hein

Walk into the media tribune of any major basketball event and there's a good chance you will come across David Hein. Having covered dozens of FIBA events, including numerous women's and youth events, there are few players Dave doesn't know about, and few players who don't know him. His sporting curiosity means he is always looking to unearth something new and a little bit special. David Hein's Eye on the Future is a weekly column digging out the freshest basketball talent worldwide and assessing what the basketball landscape will look like a couple of years down the line.