Today U20 European Championship takes a start in Izmir, Turkey. It's quite difficult to play first games of such tournaments because there is not enough information about young teams and only their first games will show their real strength. But let's start with some predictions and picks to have some fun and I hope some money too.

Israel a group winner @ 2.55
They need only one win against Italians today and that would enougn to get first place. By the way italians is not very strong team. They lost 3 games to less class opponents like Slovenia and Croatia.

Croatia - Italy 79-78 (16-17, 39-45, 58-56)
11th June Croatia - Italy 80:71
Italy - Slovenia 70 : 76 (22:19, 17:14, 13:20, 18:23)

Russia - France
Line has started with odds 1.60 on Russia win. But now HC is set -7.5 and money line is 1.30... I have read that russian coach got french team combinations from Italians.. so probably russians will be prepared for this crucial game.. But I will skip this one.

Lithuania - Greece
Lithuania is one of the shortest team in this tournament and probably one of the fastest. As always lithuanians shooting well from 3 point line and play agressive basketball. Here are their results in preparation games:

Lithuania - Belarus 81-45
Lithuania - Belarus 71-64
Lithuania - Latvia 103-83
Lithuania - Latvia 84-81
Lithuania - Croatia 94-74
Lithuania - Croatia 101-77
Lithuania - Croatia 75-68
Lithuania - Russia 58-75
Lithuania - Russia 81-69
Lithuania - Russia 74-79

Average total 153.

I did not find all Greece team results but here what I have found:

Greece - Germany: 74-45
Ukraine - Greece: 76-78
Turkey - Greece: 83-70
Israel - Greece: 76-57

Average total is 140 points but it includes 74-45 with Germany, one of the poorest teams on this Euro champ. Looking into their results seems that Greece side is able to adopt to opponent style and today I expect lithuanian-style basket with a lot of 3 points and fast breaks. In all games excluding that one with Germany the allowed more than 70 points. Lithuania have scored in average 82.2 in their preparation games and allowed about 70 points.. So I think that both teams are able to score more than 70 points and will beat this total.

Pick: OVER 141.5

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