NextGen Belgrade Group A Rosters: Efes, Maccabi, NGB, Zvezda
The Adidas NextGen EuroLeague tour finishes in Belgrade with three former champs on board: FMP, INSEP and Zvezda. Here is a breakdown of the rosters in Group B.
The Adidas NextGen EuroLeague returns after less than a week after its third stop on the qualifying tour with the fourth and final event in Belgrade from March 20-22. The tournament in the Serbian capital will be headlined by three former champions: hosts and 2014 winners Crvena Zvezda Belgrade as well as the pair of two-time winners 2008 and 2009 champs FMP Belgrade and 2010 and 2017 title holders Pole France INSEP Paris.
The eight-team field also includes Anadolu Efes Istanbul from Türkiye, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Maccabi Tel Aviv from Israel, the Serbian side Partizan Belgrade and the Next Gen Team Belgrade.
Eight teams will fight it out at the Aleksandar Nikolic Hall with the first place finisher gaining a spot at the Adidas NextGen Finals at the EuroLeague Final Four in Athens in May. The winner will join Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana and FC Barcelona in Greece after the Slovenian and Spanish clubs claimed the crowns at the NextGen Ulm and NextGen Bologna tournaments, respectively.
The two groups are broken down as followed: Group A: Efes, Maccabi, NGB and Zvezda; Group B: FMP, Hapoel, INSEP and Partizan .
The two group winners will face off in Sunday’s first place game while the second placed finishers in the group will square off for third place and places 5-8 will also be played out.
Here is a breakdown of the rosters from the four teams in Group A
Anadolu Efes Istanbul
Efes will be appearing in the competition for the seventh time and third in the last four years. The Turkish team finished sixth with 1-3 records in 2022-23 and 2024-25.
Darius Karutasu - 2009 - TUR U16
Karutasu will be at his second NextGen competition after 9.2 ppg 3.8 rpg 2.0 apg 1.8 spg at Istanbul last season. He is averaging 17.6 ppg 7.0 rpg 2.0 apg 1.4 spg 1.3 bpg in the U19 league this season.
Karutasu helped Efes win the U14 Turkish championship in 2023 and also reach the finals of the Turkish U19 league las season. He was a part of the Türkiye team that won the U16 European Youth Olympic Festival 2025 title, scoring 26 points in the Final. And later last summer he had 12.7 ppg 7.1 rpg 2.6 apg 1.6 spg at the FIBA U16 EuroBasket 2025.
Karutasu began playing basketball in Romania, and in 2018 he joined Efes family, working his way up from U12 to promotion to the senior team in January 2026 season.
He comes from a long line of sports family members, starting with his grandfather, Sandu Kapelovies, with his mother and aunt (Andreea Căruțașu, Alice Kapelovies), his father, Virgil Căruțașu, and his sister, Alexia Căruțașu, a volleyball player in Turkey, at Galatasaray. Alexia gave up the Romanian national team after participating in the 2021 European Volleyball Championship with Romania. Darius followed her footsteps and also obtained Turkish citizenship.