England Take 5th Place Despite Upset, Future Stars Day 3 Mini-Recap

Coach Raftopoulos rallies his troops

Despite England U18’s being beaten by the Richmond Select team 82-68 in the second leg of their 5th place finish at Future Stars 2010, they still secured 5th place after their 30 point win on Saturday. It was a repeat of last year’s Future Stars tournament, where the Richmond Select team managed to beat the England National team in the second game.

Richmond were led by Robert Gilchrist’s 19, and were boosted by the return of Josh Johnson who finished with 17. For England, John Stewart had 16, whilst Devon Van Oostrum added 13.

It was Croatia who took the title however, after beating Poland 70-67 in the final. Dario Saric (who is a 1994 born!) was named MVP. In the third place playoff, France routed Sweden.

Future Stars 2010 Final Standings

1st Croatia
2nd Poland
3rd France
4th Sweden
5th England
6th Richmond

Random Thoughts/Notes

• Refereeing got progressively worse as the tournament went on, the final day was a nightmare with a number of players, coaches and fans getting frustrated. The England-Richmond game to start the day was a joke. Rob Loftman got ejected for what appeared to me to be absolutely nothing.
• The final was yet another game in the tournament that went down to the wire-not a lot separates France, Sweden, Poland and Croatia.
• Though I’m definitely a believer in Devon Van Oostrum, interestingly he appeared to struggle defensively with Josh Johnson. Aside from that, he once again had a number of nice dishes (his vision is ridiculous) and showed off his fiery competitive nature getting frustrated with himself and teammates, ultimately taking it out on the refs (perhaps deservedly so; they were THAT bad!)  resulting in two technicals.
• Richmond’s Robert Gilchrist yet again provided the most highlights of the day, swatting a number of shots and catching a nice alley oop.
• Disappointing crowd turnout over the last day, though I guess it had something to do with the football.
• Need to shout out John Stewart here. Yesterday, I said he was the most consistent performer for England and described him as ‘solid’. I got my hands on the stats and turns out he dropped 23 yesterday! He’s a workhorse, and drops numbers without you realising, I had no idea he had that many. Same again today, he finished with 16. Definitely an under-the-radar player who just gets it done.
• Aaron Geramipoor sat out England’s final two games of the tournament, hoping his injury isn’t too serious. For the final game they drafted in an addition to the roster; big man G. Florentinos? I’m not familiar with him but he’s a big body.
• A few people have been asking about Richmond’s roster-Kofi Josephs
  A Othman
  Kalil Irving
  Paul Anstiss
  Ishanti Bilson-Graham
  Josh Johnson
  Caylin Raftopoulos
  Filip Lekovic
  Luke McClean
  Steven Vaughan
  E Lawrence
  Robert Gilchrist
  Amon Brown (didn’t play on Sunday)
  Dan Marton (didn’t play on Sunday)
• I will be doing a more indepth post looking at players performances and numbers later today or tomorrow. For now, this’ll do!
• Big thanks to Jack Majewski and the rest of the Future Stars staff for having me, an extremely well run tournament that I hope to see more of on our shores!

Your Thoughts?

Surprised with the final results? Enjoyed the tournament? Drop a comment below and let me know who stood out for you!