Canada 84-94 England
A comfortable enough win against Canada see's us advance into the last 16. The score-line makes this game feel as if it was really close, but in reality, apart from the second quarter, I felt we always kept Canada at arm's length and were in control. The ratings, PP100 and +/- gives further evidence that we were definitely the side in charge and perhaps we did make the game more difficult than it needed to be, but that is expected with the extra enthusiasm Canada went with.
Tactically, my defensive focus was on stopping MacKie who is an elite inside scorer. For this reason, I felt Inside Box was the defence to go with, as I was unsure whether Canada would go inside with LI/LP or try utilise MacKie's JS too for II. Our defence coped with him really well, limiting him to 14 points. Before this game he was averaging 27.7PPG this season. Offensively it was a difficult decision because our game shape was good enough to select any offence. With MacKie defending at PF for a lot of the season, I tried to seek a mismatch there with Kanjilal playing PF, but it didn't work as expected with Canada deploying a SB big to defend PF. This allowed Buchan to shine who dominated with 30 points.
Next up for us is the European powerhouse in Italy, as they cruised pass our Scottish neighbours. The likelihood of us winning this game is very little given they have more enthusiasm, home court advantage and the players they have at their disposal but let's see what happens.
Europe dominate the last 16, with 15 of the teams coming from the continent. Mexico are the only team outside of Europe, representing the Americas region. With this, the hosts for next seasons continental championships has been decided:
In Europe, the team who remain eligible are:
Germany, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary, Portugal, England, Netherlands, Russia and Romania.
The host of the next Americas will be Argentina. Mexico are ineligible to host the tournament.
The next host of the Asian Championships will be Philippines.