By Ruben Alcaraz
In the first weekend of February took place at Rhode Island College the National Prep Showcase Invitational, the well-known prep school tournament that annually joins the best teams around United States, Canada and already usual Canarias Basketball Academy from Spain. In his 15th edition, this classic tournament shows every year some European prospects that chasing his basketball dream by the American way. Let’s see how they did it:
- Serbian Stefan Zecevic (’93) from Lee Academy (Maine) scored 12 points, took 3 rebounds and dished 2 assists in the win against Notre Dame Prep. Zecevic is verbally committed to Bradley University for next season. A former member of the Serbian U18 National Team, Zecevic attended Asbury High School (Alabama) as an exchange student in 2011-12, where he averaged 31.5 point, 9.4 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game. He is a 6’5” small forward. Lee won both games that they played with the help of Lithuanian Arturas Makovskis Besevicius (’94) that scored 5 points, 4 rebounds and 3 dimes in 24 minutes.
- Redemption Christian Academy (Massachusetts) brought some interesting prospects like Swiss Leo Schittenhelm (’94). Schittenhelm scored 11 points, 5 of 11 from the field, and grabbed 3 rebounds in 25 minutes to help his team to beat TAAG Academy. RCA won both contests that they played with a team that have in his roster Turkish Mert Resitoglu (’94), Macedonian Nikola Oltovski (’94) and Greek Stylianos Papafloratos (’94).
- Precisely TAAG Academy (Florida) plays with two European prospects in his starting lineup. Petar Milutin (’93) and Dragoljub Popovic (’93), both from Serbia, played three games in Rhode Island but they losing all. Popovic scored 6 points, grabbed 4 boards and got 2 steals in 22 minutes against RCA and made 4 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists in 27 minutes versus CJEOTO. Milutin scored 2 points against RCA and caught a rebound and a steal in front of CJEOTO.
- St. John’s NW Military Academy (Wisconsin) usually brings good Europeans to NPSI and this year was no an exception. Croatian Mario Matasovic (’93) helped his team in the two wins of three games that they got with 6 points, 2 rebounds and one block in 14 minutes against St. Thomas More and 13 points, 9 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 blocks and 1 steal versus Notre Dame Prep. Swiss Marc Seylan (’92) helped scoring 4 points, 2 rebounds and 3 assists versus St. Thomas More in 15 minutes and grabbing 3 boards in 10 minutes against Notre Dame Prep.
- The European country with more players in Rhode Island was clearly Turkey. And the team that brought more Turkish was Putnam Science Academy (Connecticut). The player that lead the way of this Turkish bunch is 6’11” center Ugur Hortum (’94). Hortum scored 5 points, got 8 rebounds, dished 2 dimes and put a block in 19 minutes to beat Kiski School. The rest of the Ottoman players are Emirhan Ozturk (’93), Berkan Turetkun (’94), Burak Eraslan (’94), Berkan Tuylu (’95) and Yasin Gultekin (’95).
- MacDuffie School (Massachusetts) brought Ege Basaran (’95), Sani Kohen (’95) and Berkan Agul (’94) also from Turkey. In a bad loss versus St. Thomas More Basaran made 3 points, 1 rebound, 2 assists and 1 steal in 13 minutes meanwhile Kohen struggled hitting only one of his 8 attempts from the field in 31 minutes.
- But the famous Turkish at NPSI was 6’8” power forward Kerem Kanter (’95), brother of NBA’s Enes Kanter (’92). The player of Wilbraham & Monson (Massachusetts) is far of dominate like his older brother and against Canarias Basketball Academy he only played 7 minutes grabbing 2 rebound to get the win.
- St. Thomas More (Connecticut) is the house of British Ajou Deng (’95), another member of Dinka tribe like his uncle NBA’s Luol Deng. He played only 2 minutes in a losing effort against St. John’s NWMA. Against MacDuffie School he enjoyed 12 minutes on the floor to score 2 points, catch 2 rebounds and put a block.
- Local team St. Andrew’s (Rhode Island) has Nikola Vukosavovic (’94) from Montenegro in their roster. He played only 3 minutes against Toronto Academy but helped grabbing 3 boards to win the contest.
- Another player born in Montenegro is Dusan Perovic (’94) that plays for South Kent (Connecticut). Perovic made 4 points and 2 rebounds in a winning effort against Toronto Academy but he struggled in the lost in front of New Hampton missing his 6 field goal shots and making 4 fouls in 17 minutes.
- Bulgarian Georgi Funtarov (’93) scored 8 points, 5 rebounds and dished a dime in 27 minutes for Vermont Academy (Vermont) in the loss versus Suffield School.
- Another Europeans at NPSI were Rudolf Arnicans (’94) from Latvia and playing at Brewster Academy (New Hampshire), Evandro Bildau (’93) from Germany and playing at Tilton School (New Hampshire) and Russian 6’5” shooting guard Alexander Dubovitskiy (’94) that is currently at Marianapolis Prep (Connecticut). Dubovitskiy made 6 points, 2 rebounds and 2 steals in 19 minutes to beat Canadian team REDA.
- The first ever French academy in North America, Alma Academy (Quebec, Canada) brought Jonathan Lukusa Mukendi (’92) from Belgium.
Special mention deserves the Canarias Basketball Academy (Spain) that played at NPSI for the fourth straight year. In a talented European squad, the most outstanding players were Czech Petr Herman (’94), Dutch Jordy Kuiper (’95) and Floris Versteeg (’94). 6’10” power forward Herman scored 11 points and grabbed 5 boards in 29 minutes in a losing effort against Notre Dame Prep. In the loss against Wilbraham & Monson the Czech helped CBA with 4 points, 5 rebounds, 4 blocks and 3 steals in 28 minutes. 6’9” forward Kuiper showed his best post moves against Notre Dame Prep scoring 8 points, taking 2 rebounds and dishing 2 assists in 24 minutes. 6’9” forward Dutch Versteeg scored 15 points in the last contest against Bridgton Academy.
