The Serbian basketball national team under 16 is the champion of Europe for 2025, as they defeated Lithuania in the final in Tbilisi with a score of 99:86.
The Serbian team in the final was led by a trio consisting of Petar Bjelica (25 points, 9 rebounds), Ognjen Simjanovski (22 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists, 4 steals) and Nikola Kusturica (18 points, 14 rebounds, 8 assists, 5 steals and 2 blocks).
Luka Pavlović, Lazar Miličić – the son of former Serbian basketball player Darko Miličić – and Vaso Šaponjić also stood out with 8 points each.
In this way, Serbia also won the first medal in the competition of young basketball players this summer. The U20 team took fourth place at the European Championship, the Serbian national team under 19 finished the World Championship in ninth position, and the juniors (U18) were fifth at the EuroBasket.
This is the sixth time that the cadets have won the European basketball championship, and a total of 12 medals for the Eaglets in that age group.
Serbia came to victory after a big turnaround in the third quarter. The players of Stevan Mijović opened the match better – with an 11:2 run on the wings of Bjelica and Kusturica, but Lithuania, which neutralized the problems in rebounding and with lost balls, then took the lead.
For a long time, Serbia had no defensive solutions for Buividas (a total of 26 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists) and the shot from outside positions was a problem. However, after halftime, the Eaglets played much more aggressively in defense, thanks to which they came to a larger number of easy points in the counter and on the layup.
Miličić had a big role in the end, as did Simjanovski – who repeatedly started the Serbian attack from a dead stop, while Kusturica and Bjelica brought key points in the finish and thus confirmed Serbia’s triumph.
In addition to Buividas, Šiškauskas also stood out in the Lithuanian team with 22 points.
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Source: SportKlub; Photo: U16 Eurobasket