The path that many protagonists will complete to play this Sunday’s Gipuzkoan derby between Juaristi Iraurgi and Acunsa Gipuzkoa is not going to be anything unknown. Whether at the time of taking the usual walk from Azpeitia itself, traveling the few kilometers from Azkoitia or taking the already memorized GI-631 road, seeing the Azpeitia sports center appear on the horizon is going to be a very familiar image from the past, and in some cases also present, that a dozen players and coaches have with this pavilion.
The fact that eleven of the twelve Gipuzkoan players currently active have passed through Iraurgi at some point in their careers shows the relevance that the Urolatarra club has in the basketball training of the territory. Darío Brizuela, who made the jump to Estudiantes directly from Easo in 2011, at the age of 16, is the only exception to a list made up of Mikel Motos (GBC), Julen Olaizola (Cáceres), Xabi Oroz (GBC), Aitor Zubizarreta ( GBC), Xabi Beraza (GBC), Mikel Sanz (Coruña), Beñat Hevia (Juaristi), Gaizka Maiza (Melilla), Ibon Guridi (Juaristi), Ierai Aizpitarte (Juaristi) and Manex Ansorregi (Juaristi). Eight of them will be tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. (LaLiga Sports TV).
The reason that they all have that point in common is due to the ability that the Iraurgi have had in the last decade to be in the right place. The differential factor with respect to the rest of the clubs in Gipuzkoa has been the regularity that the urolatarras have had in categories such as the LEB Plata and the LEB Oro, leagues in which, with the exception of Askatuak between 2013 and 2015, only they have competed. This circumstance has allowed them to be the next reasonable step in the formative stage of a player and to be among the EBA teams –fourth category– of Mondragón, Ordizia, Tolosa, Easo, Zarautz or Goierri and the ACB or LEB Oro of Gipuzkoa Basket.
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Semifinales Basketball Champions League
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Iberostar Tenerife
71-78 -
Manresa
55-63 -
Ayer
-
Caceres-Palma 102-97
-
TAU Castellón-Granada 69-73
-
Hoy
-
Prat-Coruña 18
15 -
Alicante-Huesca 19
30 -
Almansa-Real Valladolid 20
00 -
morning
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Students-Palencia 12
30 -
Melilla-Girona 12
30 -
Juaristi
– (LaLiga TV) 18.00 -
Acunsa Gipuzkoa
(LaLiga TV) 18.00 -
Classification
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JGP Team
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p 1
Granada 32 25 7 -
ê 2
Students 31 24 7 -
ê 3
Lleida 31 21 10 -
ê 4
Girona 31 19 12 -
ê 5
Palencia 31 19 12 -
ê 6
Coruña 31 18 13 -
ê 7
Caceres 32 18 14 -
ê 8
TAU Castellón 32 17 15 -
ê 9
Oviedo 31 17 14 -
Acunsa Gipuzkoa
31 15 16 -
11
Real Valladolid 31 15 16 -
12
Alicante 31 14 17 -
13
Almansa 31 12 19 -
14
Melilla 31 12 19 -
15
Palma 32 10 22 -
Juaristi Iraurgi
31 10 21 -
q 17
Prat 31 10 21 -
q 18
Huesca 31 5 26
These are the cases of Motos, Olaizola, Beraza and Sanz, who on their way to professionalism left Easo and the capital of Gipuzkoa to join the Azpeiti-Azkoitia team of LEB Plata and grow in a more competitive and ideal environment for their progression. The same thing happened with Maiza, who fell short in the EBA league with TAKE Tolosa.
If they made the round trip, the locals Oroz and Zubizarreta – with a stopover in the United States – have only made the first leg, having played, like Guridi, Aizpitarte and Ansorregi, all their lives at Iraurgi. They learned to dribble in the same sports center that tomorrow hosts the LEB Oro derby and in which so many players from Gipuzkoa have competed in mini, child, cadet, junior and senior categories. The case of Hevia is perhaps the most different, since after a few years in the United States and having trained at Easo –he spent a year at Askatuak–, he has settled down and is completing, at a high level, his fourth season at Juaristi .
As for players who may choose to become professionals in the future, Beñat Etxeberria, a second-year junior at TAKE Tolosa – he is fighting this weekend to be promoted to EBA – is training once a week with Acunsa Gipuzkoa Basket. Of great stature and who can play as a small forward or power forward, he has recently aroused the interest of ACB club academies, so the Gipuzkoan basketball pyramid must continue working to provide him with opportunities and bet on continuing to train at home.
The two coaches, focused “on the staging”
This quarry is not only for players. Lolo Encinas will return to what was his home for four separate seasons in two stages (2003-2006 and 2017/18). Yesterday, in the run-up to the match, he was “convinced that by winning the three remaining games we’ll get into the playoffs.” He conveyed that “at the beginning of the match we have to be very involved” and Jiménez, in the same vein, expressed that “we must improve the staging that we had in Illunbe” in the first round.
Other technicians who have also passed through Azpeitia are Aitor Uriondo, Jon Txakartegi and Iurgi Caminos.
