U18 Barcelona will defend ANGT continental title in Istanbul!

U18 FC Barcelona Lassa showed its dominance in booking its ticket to the Euroleague Basketball ADIDAS NEXT GENERATION TOURNAMENT Finals with a 74-58 victory over U18 Divina Seguros Joventut Badalona in the final of the ANGT Torneig de Bàsquet Junior Ciutat de L'Hospitalet. Even though Barcelona won the European title last season, this win gave the club its first L'Hospitalet qualifying tournament crown since 2011. The victory was also a bit of revenge as it was a repeat of the ANGT Finals title game from 2013 when Joventut won in London. Andrija Marjanovic paced Barcelona against Joventut with 23 points while Nikola Zizic collected 12 points and 9 rebounds. Joventut took second place as Alejandro Galan led the team in scoring with 13 points.

The game went back and forth in the early going between the local rivals with 5 lead changes when Barcelona went ahead 9-8. Pol Molins kept Joventut in the game and tied the game at 15-15 with a three-point play, but Barcelona hit the final 7 points of the quarter including a three-pointer at the buzzer by Omar Dieng for a 22-15 lead. Eric Gonzalez's three-pointer got Joventut to within 26-22 before Barcelona opened its first double-digit lead at 32-22. Another trey from Gonzalez trimmed the gap to 35-31, but Barcelona scored the final 8 points of the half, including Arnas Velicka's three-pointer at the buzzer for a 43-31 cushion. Pep Busquets knocked down a jumper to keep Joventut within 47-35 but Barcelona's defense held Joventut for the final 7:32 minutes of the third quarter while Zizic and Velicka did most of the damage in pushing the cushion out to 63-35 after 30 minutes. Barcelona increased the lead to 30 points to start the fourth quarter before Joventut went on a 0-9 run in an effort to at least make the final result more respectable at 65-44. But Barcelona had too much firepower for Joventut to mount any comeback.