England Rout Richmond in First Leg, Future Stars Day 2 Mini Recap

Coach Lascelles talks to his team

England destroyed Richmond 89-59 in the first leg of their 5th place playoff yesterday behind strong play from Reading guard Louis Sayers, down at Day 2 of Future Stars International Junior Tournament.

In the semi-finals, Croatia beat Sweden 94-89 and Poland beat France 77-74 in two tightly contested games that went down to the wire. That sets up a Croatia-Poland final today (going the complete opposite way to my predictions).

Schedule for final day;

3pm-England vs Richmond (5th place playoff 2nd leg)
5pm-Sweden vs France (3rd place playoff)
7pm-Croatia vs Poland (Final)

If you’re free make sure you head on down to Kingston for what promises to be a great day!

Random Thoughts/Notes

• Still waiting to get stats (been told I’ll get them this morning) so you’ll have to bear with me, I’d definitely say Louis Sayers led the England team in scoring, draining a number of jumpshots as well as a nice dunk.
• Games were a lot more free flowing today and more entertaining. Both semi finals went down to the wire.
• Highlight of the day was Sweden’s Markus Eriksson shooting LIGHTS OUT against Croatia. He went 9/9 from beyond the arc (might’ve been 8/8) and 10/11 from the field overall for 29 points, including 7/7 threes in the opening quarter! One of the best shooting displays I’ve ever seen.
• Robert Gilchrist was his usual highlight reel self, catching two straight lobs from Caylin Raftopoulos (including one on England big man Eliandro Inacio) and then having another dunk on a break. Caylin shoulda got a shout out yesterday too for his 6/7 three point shooting effort (my bad). He also had a sick over-the-head pass to Luke McClean today.
• Gym was like a sweatbox and stank by the end of the day lol.
• Devon Van Oostrum saw extended minutes in the game today; the team played a lot better basketball for it, though I don’t think Devon’s individual numbers were all that spectacular. He’s the most entertaining player in the tournament to watch in my opinion.
• The French big man (who must be at least 7 foot) had a nice dunk  off a missed free throw-first one I have ever seen and I wasn’t recording dammit!
• Richmond players were not happy with their performance-I expect them to come out with greater intensity today.
• Aaron Geramipoor was out for England with an injury, whilst Josh Johnson sat out for Richmond with an ankle injury.
• John Stewart has been one of the most consistent players for England in their three games so far. No other word to describe him than solid-he doesn’t try to do too much, and what he does do he does extremely well.
• I predicted a Swedish-French final and obviously couldn’t have been more wrong. Both games were upsets in my eyes, I’m extremely surprised to see Sweden and France playing it out for third place.

Your Thoughts?

What did you think of Day 2? Drop a comment below and let me know!