U20 Belgian Lions advance to the Quarter-Finals at the U20 European Championship!

At the U20 European Championship (Division A) our Young Lions have managed to qualify for the Quarter-Finals after getting a 3-1 record.

In the Group Phase our youngsters were matched in a very tough Group C along with Spain, Turkey and North Macedonia. To open things up our U20 Lions managed to get a close (and unexpected) win against Turkey (62-64). Next up came the game against Spain which did go as expected as our Lions were clearly overmatched and eventually lost it 45-81. To make matters worst they also lost back-up Point Guard Evert Van Eyck who suffered a serious injury (we have no further news on what exactly but I’m pretty sure he will be out for several months). Van Eyck’s absence didn’t seem to be a big issue in the game against North Macedonia as our U20 Lions cruised to a 59-86 victory with lots of playing time for our bench players. With their 2-1 record our Young Lions placed 2nd in Group C, qualifying for the Round of 16 where they were matched up against Iceland which was played this evening.

In that match-up against Iceland our youngsters got off to a very slow start with a 0-8 run for Iceland before finally getting in some kind of rhythm and clawing back. Unfortunately the Belgian offense remained stagnant throughout the first half with little ball movement and playing laterally instead of trying to get to the basket. Luckily for them Nathan Missia-Dio was having his best game of the tournament and kept Belgium somewhat close. At the half Iceland had a nice 30-38 lead.

In the third quarter Belgium finally seemed to get into the swing of things with Ayuba Bryant and Noah Meeusen chipping in to reduce the gap and jump ahead to end the third quarter with the 54-53 score. The final quarter remained a close knitted affair with both teams going back-and forth and with 2 minutes left to play the scoreboard read 66-66. Bryant put Belgium ahead but was immediately answered by Thrastarson (the younger brother of Styrmyr who plays with Mons). But again Missia-Dio came to Belgium’s rescue and with a three and 3-4 FT’s he gave our youngsters the 74-71 lead. Iceland reduced it back to 74-73 from the FT-line and then got 2 more opportunities for a possible game-winning shot. Luckily they didn’t and Belgium came away with the 74-73 win, advancing to the Quarter-Finals where they will face the Czech Republic (tomorrow at 15:30).

Nathan Missia-Dio was omni-present in this game, finishing with 35 pts & 16 rebs (unfortunately he also had 7 turnovers). – who had been our most efficient player so far – added 17 pts & 6 rebs, while finished with 10 pts & 11 asts.