Euroleague Basketball Announce 2012 NIJT Classification Tournaments

Barcelona, November 4, 2011. The Euroleague Basketball Nike International Junior Tournament, which crowns the best youth team of the continent each spring, will mark its 10th anniversary at the 2012 Turkish Airlines Euroleague Final Four in Istanbul, Turkey on the second weekend in May. Euroleague Basketball is proud to announce that four preliminary classification tournaments will be held across Europe during the winter – in Rome, L'Hospitalet, Belgrade and, for the first time ever, Kaunas, Lithuania – to determine qualifiers for the finals in Istanbul. The winners in each of those cities will reserve the right to play on the biggest stage of all, in parallel with the 2012 Turkish Airlines Euroleague Final Four. The winning team in Istanbul will become the undisputed European Junior Club Champion and will represent Europe in the 2012 Nike Global Challenge.

“It is amazing when we take a step back to realise that we will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the NIJT next May in Istanbul after starting out with a very modest project back in 2003," Jordi Bertomeu, Euroleague Basketball President and CEO, said. "We would not be in this position without the support of Nike, one of Euroleague Basketball’s key Global Partners, who together with the collaboration of AS Stella Azurra, CB L'Hospitalet, Zalgiris Kaunas and Crvena Zvezda Belgrade, forms the backbone of these events."

Every city will have eight teams competing over three days for the possibility of returning home as winners and thus booking their place in the 2012 Euroleague Basketball Nike International Junior Tournament. In the 2011 edition, Fenerbahce Ulker Istanbul (Turkey), FC Barcelona Regal (Spain) and Crvena Zvezda (Serbia) won the classification tournaments, while KK Zagreb Croatia Osiguranje (Croatia) crowned the NIJT champion in Barcelona, Spain, where the tournament originally started in 2003.

This season's first classification tournament will be the Torneo Città Di Roma, organised by AS Stella Azurra in Rome, Italy and running from December 27 to 29, 2011.This will be swiftly followed by the Torneig de Básquet Júnior “Ciutat de L’Hospitalet”, organized by CB L’Hospitalet in L’Hopsitalet, Spain which will be played from January 4 to 6, 2012.The third classification tournament will be the Kaunas NIJCT, organised by Zalgiris Kaunas in Kaunas, Lithuania, from February 10 to 12. The next and last stop in the preliminary phase is the Euroleague Basketball Nike International Junior Classification Tournament Belgrade-JCT, organised by Crvena Zvezda Belgrade in the Serbian capital, running from February 24 to 26. All the teams in those tournaments will be aiming to share the magice of the 2012 Turkish Airlines Euroleague Final Four in Istanbul, where the Euroleague Basketball Nike International Junior Tournament will be played from May 10 to 13.

As the place where future stars are born, the NIJT alumni club is becoming a who’s who of European basketball stars. Many players who participated in previous events can be seen on Turkish Airlines Euroleague and Eurocup rosters, including Milos Teodosic (CSKA Moscow), Donatas Motiejunas (Asseco Prokom Gdynia), Branislav Djekic and Milan Macvan (Partizan m:ts Belgrade), Leon Radosevic (EA7 – Emporio Armani Milan), Nikola Mirotic and Mirza Begic (Real Madrid), and Mantas Kalnietis (Zalgiris Kaunas).

Fans can follow all of the action through every step of the NIJT at www.euroleague.net/events/nijt. Articles, live statistics, game reports, photos and more will be available during each and every tournament.The action tips off in Rome on Tuesday, December 27 as eight teams begin their own Road to Istanbul. On May 13, 2012 a new continental junior champion will be crowned at Sinan Erdem Arena mere hours before the two best teams in Europe take the same court for the title game in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague Final Four.

Press Release: Euroleague Basketball