Italy, Serbia, Spain strong in U19 warm-ups, Croatia, Greece struggle without stars

LOGRONO (2015 FIBA U19 World Championship) - Italy, Serbia and Spain all picked up multiple victories in warm-up games ahead of the 2015 FIBA U19 World Championship while Greece and Croatia struggled without their top players.

Italy started their preparations with three victories at the United Colors of Basketball tournament in Roseto degli Abruzzi, where Turkey, Argentina and Egypt competed as well. 

Martino Mastellari scored 18 points as the Italians beat Argentina 92-60, before Ion Lupusor tallied 23 points in both of Italy's wins over Egypt (98-86) and Turkey (63-51).  

Turkey finished second in the tournament with two victories for a 2-1 record as Ege Arar tallied 21 points in a 78-73 win over Egypt and Ogulcan Baykan scored 20 points in the Turks' 76-64 triumph against Argentina. The Argentineans beat Egypt 75-59 despite playing without their star Juan Pablo Vaulet. 

Spain hosted another major U19 Worlds warm-up tournament in Logrono, where they played alongside Australia, Croatia and Canada. 

The Spaniards won all three games as Marc Garcia scored 19 points in a 79-64 defeat of Australia and tallied that same amount of points in a 75-46 triumph over Canada. The shooting guard added 17 points in Spain's 87-57 victory over Croatia.

After Canada lost to Spain, they beat Croatia 84-68 behind Corey Johnson's 17 points but were then beaten 78-69 by Australia. 

Australia went 2-1 in their three games, adding a 101-90 defeat of Croatia to their loss against Spain and win over Canada. 

Croatia lost all three of their games but were playing without top stars such as Lovro Mazalin, Marko Arapovic, Ante Zizic, Ivica Zubac and Nik Slavica. Croatia and Spain were still to face off at the tournament.

Meanwhile, Greece, the hosts of the 2015 FIBA U19 World Championship, have lost five games while playing without top players Vasilis Charalampopoulos, Georgios Pagagiannis and Michalis Lountzis from Panathinaikos and Tom Kottas from PAOK. 

The Greeks took part in the Adidas Eurocamp in Treviso, losing 65-43 against the All-Star Team, 65-57 versus the France U20 team and 100-58 against the US Select Team. Dimitrios Stamatis scored a team-high 10 points against the All-Star team, while Kostas Mitoglou collected 18 points and 11 rebounds versus the French and Georgos Tsalmpouris had 16 points against the US team.

Greece also faced off against Serbia twice in Vrsac and lost twice 70-66 and 60-48. Stamatis led the Greeks in scoring in both games with 16 points. 

Serbia got 19 points from Stefan Simic in the first game and Dusan Kovacevic paced the team with 11 points in the second friendly.

The 2015 FIBA U19 World Championship takes place in Heraklion (Crete), Greece from 27 June-5 July.

FIBA