Another Jordan Brand Classic Camp is in the books, wrapping in Istanbul, Turkey, yesterday. The camp saw 40 European players dueling on the court (and, in a serious sign of our times, apparently also in media relations) over eight days – including an all-day “presser” – in order to gain an invite to the prestigious Jordan Brand Classic game in New York.
A total of 10 invites were handed out to the under-17s at the camp, and Nike officials have announced that the European representatives in the Jordan Brand Classic game will be Tayfun Erulku (Efes Pilsen) and Talat Altunbey of Turkey; Serbians/FMP Belgrade players Vasilije Micic and Nikola Jankovic; Frenchmen/INSEP players Charly Maraux and Alexandre Chassang; Marius Grigonis (Sabonis Basketball School, Lithuania); Francesco Candussi (Isontina, Italy); Kyprianos Maragkos (Panathinaikos, Greece); and Malik Mueller (Urspringschule, Germany).
Six other international players will be selected to fill out rosters for the “International Game” as part of the third international ‘Classic.
Joining Ball in Europe as a contributor is Sam Chadwick, a youth-team assistant coach and aspiring sports journalist/head coach (so call ‘im the BiE intern, then) based in Great Britain. Sam’s home team is the British Basketball League division three team Solent Kestrels, his favorite team is Unicaja Malaga (“as Joel Freeland plays for them and he used to play at my club,” he explains), and his favorite NBA team is the Chicago Bulls (“a consequence of growing up in the 90s”). Sam also writes his own blog on all things basketball-related at 
Ball in Europe will be rounding up this weekend’s European cup action tomorrow, but for today here are a handful of stories from the interwebs this week about every other subject in a seven-day span spent mostly between deprogramming from NBA All-Star Weekend and preparing for the Copa del Rey.
is out now.
FIBA today announced the groupings for the organization’s U17 World Championship for Men competition scheduled for Germany in July. European teams competing in the 12-team tournament include Lithuania, Serbia, Poland, Spain and the hosts.
And now for the public-service portion of Ball in Europe … at no cost to you runs a somewhat comprehensive of the basketball action going down for the first two weeks of February; schedule information is provided for top leagues in Spain, France, Germany, and Italy, together with international leagues and FIBA competitions. This calendar will be updated occasionally and, of course, will be completely refreshed in a couple of weeks. Happy February, all!
Congratulations go out today to junior team Cajasol of Seville, which overcame Unicaja, 72-70, in the finals of the 31st Torneig de Basquet Junior Ciutat de L’Hospitalet. Though this marks the 22nd occasion a Spanish club has taken the tournament, the title is Cajasol’s first. 