LAKTASI (Bosna and Herzegovina) - The fourth edition of the Youth Basketball Champions League will open with a real humdinger on April 7.
Two teams that are already stalwarts of this competition in ERA Nymburk and Coretec Basketball Academy from Oostende, will get us started in a Group A and both teams have brought in some familiar faces to try and go one better than last year.
Let's have a look at each team before the action starts.
Coretec Basketball Academy
Last year's Cinderella story are this year's favorites. Filou Oostende's academy surprised everyone last year with the quality of basketball they played, possibly even themselves at times.
Senior players like Daan Pieters, Vince T'Joncke, and Lars Coppejans led Oostende on the floor, but the star of the show was 2008-born power forward Tim Waerniers.
The presence of Waerniers as a returning player on this year's roster serves to highlight that Oostende aren't in Laktasi just to take part.
Head coach Maarten Caron is also back to steer his third YBCL team and has a roster to work with that he hopes will be every bit as competitive as last year's finalists and silver medalists.
Whilst his 2007-born leadership group has moved on, this year's squad have already continued where their predecessors left off, by becoming back-to-back Belgian U18 Cup winners.
The names to watch in this squad are, of course, Tim Waerniers who will surely be an early frontrunner for the MVP award and after last year's showing gone on to be part of Oostende's roster in senior BCL games.
Waerniers put up 18 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 assists, with 50-42-72 shooting splits last season, and will only be harder to stop with more experience under his belt.
Joining him from last year's squad is Julian Dewinter, who will also be a name to watch in this Oostende squad.
Dewinter put up 3.3 points and 2.3 rebounds in less than 7 minutes of action last time around, and will looking to scale that production up in an increased role.
Newcomer to the squad Max Van de Keere is a Belgian U16 international guard who put up 10 points and 4 rebounds in last summer's U16 EuroBasket, Division B. He will be another one to watch for Oostende.
Bnei Herzliya
Israeli club Bnei Herzliya have hit some unfortunate complications traveling to the event this year and will be replaced by local club KK Borac from Banja Luka.
ERA Nymburk
Czech powerhouse Nymburk have played in every year of this competition thus far and will be hoping to reach their first Semi-Final.
That pursuit will be boosted by the return on Krystof Davidek. In last year's edition, Davidek finished as the competition's sixth-highest scorer with 18 points and 13.3 rebounds.
He led the entire Youth BCL for efficiency rating, with an eye-catching 30 per game.
Head coach Jan Kosar will lead Nymburk again and he has constructed and almost entirely new roster around his 2008-born starlet Davidek.
Krystof Jilemnicky and 2009-born Jan Kukacka are the only returning players from last year's squad that recorded their only win against the hosts Manisa Basket.
This time around, it looks like everything rests on that first game against Oostende to determine who will reach the Semi-Finals.