Over the holiday break the Scotland Under 18 Junior men’s team took advantage of an invitation to participate in the Annual Haris Tournament run by the Manchester Magic basketball club. The Haris Memorial Tournament is an annual holiday event which pays tribute to Haris Charalambous, one of the top players to come out of the Magic youth programme. Haris died suddenly while training with his NCAA Division 1 Toledo University team in October 2006.

The Tournament provided an excellent first preparation opportunity on the long road to the European Championships, Division B  in Tel Aviv, July 2010.  With some tough opposition in our Pool (Germany U17, Manchester Magic Junior Men, Kortrijk a Belgium club side), this was a great chance for some players to step up as four of the squad (Lee Reilly, Dale Grieve, Brian Munnoch & Cameron Buchan), were unavailable due to injury or other commitments.

The principal objectives for the tournament were:

- Evaluate the effectiveness of the offensive and defensive systems put in place prior to the tournament
- Evaluate the player’s performances against a broad range of opposition
- Evaluate the player’s interaction with each other over the three days

Game 1 – 27th Dec, 18:00

First up as the German U17 national team, most of who were part of the U16 team that finished 13th in Euro A last summer. This squad have been put together to participate in FIBA World U17 Championships which are being hosted by Germany in July 2010 and will be together for over 80 days in preparation for this major tournament.We got off to a fantastic start leading 11-2 mid way through the 1st quarter, catching them off guard and dominating at both ends of the floor. However, by the end of the quarter the Germans had fought back and the game was tied 13-13.The 2nd quarter could only be described as a nightmare with Germany scoring 18 pts to our none, taking a 31-13 half time lead.We started the 3rd quarter the same way we started the 1st, scoring inside and playing much more effective defence, winning the quarter 14-10.We continued to play well in the 4th quarter cutting further into the German lead before they put a spurt on late on taking the quarter 20-11 and the game 61-38.With everybody hitting the floor at some point in the game, we learnt a number of valuable lessons whilst keeping the eventual winners of the tournament to their lowest score of the weekend.

Games 2 – 28th Dec, 13:00

Game 2 matched us against the host clubs big and athletic Manchester Junior team. As in Game 1, we started out well taking a 1pt lead (15-14), into the 2nd quarter. Unfortunately, like game 1 we had very poor 2nd quarter scoring only 9 pts and losing the quarter 9-17 for a half time score of 31 – 24.The 3rd quarter saw both teams trading baskets with Magic winning out 12-11 taking an 8 point (43-35) into the final quarter. The 4th quarter saw Magic stretch their lead to as much as 19 before a late spurt brought the game back to 14 with the final score of 63-49.

Game 3 – 28th Dec, 18:00

The final pool game was against Kortrijk was a test of the players character in terms of picking themselves up after two defeats. This did not start of well with Kortrijk hitting 4 big three point shots on the way to a 22-17 1st quarter lead. The first few minutes of the 2nd saw Kortrijk extend that lead to 13 before we went on an 18-5 run to finish the quarter up by two at 40-38. Unfortunately, just before the end of the quarter an accidental collision between Scotland Captain Johnny Bunyan and one of the Belgian players held the game up for about 10 minutes. The Kortrijk player being taken to hospital to receive stitches in a nasty cut whilst Johnny played the remainder of the game but was unable to play in the final two games.The 3rd and 4th quarter saw our defensive system really begin to become effective, limiting our opponents to 12 and 7 respectively, whilst scoring 18 and 19 ourselves.

Game 4 – 29th Dec, 10:00 (5th – 8th Cross-over games)

This game was against a younger but no less athletic and energetic Magic 2 team. As a consequence, we took the opportunity to change the staring line up and rotations.  Again, the defensive systems were beginning to work limiting Magic across the four quarters. Importantly for us, we had a broader spread of scorers with everybody contributing directly and indirectly.Final score 65 – 40 (15-7, 17-10, 17-12, 16-11).

Game 5 – 29th Dec 14:00 (5th & 6th Play Off)

With Kortrijk winning a tight game (71-67) against the Romanian U18 National team, they were fired up and looking for revenge for the previous night’s loss. With everyone now getting the hang of the offences and defence, we again started well and this time we continued this into the 2nd quarter, winning the half 45-28 (21-14, 24-14).The 3rd quarter continued in the same manner enabling us to extend the lead to 25 (64-39), before taking our foot of the pedal and letting Kortrijk win the final quarter 19-11 for a 75-58 Scotland win.

Summary

The tournament helped us enormously in meeting the objectives specified previously and gave the management team a clear view of what we need to work on and add in, prior to our next preparation tournament in Cherbourg over the Easter weekend.As ever with this squad, their behaviour on and off the court was exemplary and the management team would like to take the opportunity to thank them all for their effort and commitment throughout the tournamentWe would also like to take this opportunity to thank Brian Dobson, Joe Forber and the rest of the Manchester Magic club for their hospitality and congratulate them on the smooth running of the tournament.