Roundup

Aleksej Nikolic had a nice all-round performance as Slovenia captured the title of Division B

Slovenia dominated the gold-medal game in the U16 European Championship Men Division B to hand England their first loss of the tournament.

With a 43-31 lead at half-time, Slovenia didn't take their foot off the gas and extended the lead to 21 on Luka Kokol's three-pointer in the third period. England finished strongly to reduce the final deficit to 9 points, an 82-73 win to Slovenia. Both teams will play in Division A next year.

Matic Rebec and Jure Ritlop led Slovenia with 19 points and Aleksej Nikolic added 15 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists and 4 steals. Luke Nelson led England with 23 points.

Bosnia and Herzegovina claimed third place, again defeating Israel by just one point in a repeat of the result from their group game last Sunday.

This time the final score was 72-71, with Nedim Buza's free-throws securing victory before Roy Ayalon hit a three-pointer for Israel at the buzzer. Ayalon and Buza both led their teams with 16 points apiece.

Hungary held Armenia to 30% shooting and surged clear in the third quarter to claim fifth place with a 65-52 win. A 19-2 run opened the second half for Hungary and the Armenian team could not respond.

Dávid Boinitzer had 14 points and 9 rebounds in the win, while Zoltan Perl added 14 points and 8 rebounds.

The Netherlands withstood a double-double from Vlad Cobzaru (22 points, 11 rebounds, 3 blocks) to take 7th place with a 73-57 win. Aurel Chiriac added 20 points for Romania, but the team was held to 31% shooting overall as the Dutch team dominated the second half.

Emil van Veen top-scored for the Netherlands with 13 points, and Willem Brandwijk added 11 points and 7 rebounds.

Portugal took ninth place in a dramatic finish, beating Belgium 53-52 on Isaias Insaly's bucket with 5 seconds remaining. Insaly finished the game with 24 points.

Host nation FYR of Macedonia finished the tournament by claiming 19th place in an entertaining 65-63 win over Ireland. Davor Spasovski tied the game at 63-63 with 9 seconds remaining, putting back an offensive rebound, before Ljubomir Mladenovski claimed the defensive rebound from Aidan Quinn's last attempt and Simeon Mitrov scored the game-winner at the buzzer. Mitrov had a game-high 19 points and 8 rebounds. Jason Carr led Ireland with 17 points and John Carroll added 15 points and 9 rebounds.