BuzzerBeater Forums

Hello everyone,

It is time for a new U21 update.

So far we have a 4-1 record. We are currently 19th on the table and we are currently ranked 50th in the world, up 9 places compared with last week from place 59. Support dropped from 57% to 55%, which is 1 vote. After reading the other forum posts, I really wonder who that could be :)

So far we have played these games.

12/28/2009 8:00:00 PM Makedonija U21 59 - 123 (Replay) England U21
1/4/2010 8:00:00 AM England U21 101 - 89 (Replay) New Zealand U21
1/13/2010 8:00:00 PM Canada U21 111 - 96 (Replay) England U21
1/18/2010 3:30:00 PM England U21 107 - 98 (Replay) Moldova U21
1/25/2010 3:00:00 PM 57 England U21 114 - 85 (Replay) 89 Azərbaycan U21

We had a great win over Moldova, we CTed and they tied. We won the game because we had the right tactics and they had the wrong ones. vs Macedonia, New Zealand and Azarbaycan the games were pretty straight forward, vs Canada I calculated a loss and we Tied.

Our remaining games are the following.

2/1/2010 8:00:00 PM 73 Guatemala U21 Set Lineup 50 England U21
2/8/2010 8:00:00 PM 12 Deutschland U21 Set Lineup 50 England U21
2/15/2010 12:00:00 PM 50 England U21 Set Lineup 39 Taiwan U21

We should be able to beat Guatamala, but I dont expect a walkover. In case we win that, we should only need to win 1 more game to qualify for the next round. We might even get HCA in the next round.

We did have some problems with gameshape, I did send a few weeks ago an email to the relevant coaches and did not get a reply. After talking about it with Soel, he came with the great idea to write a gameshape guide. I wrote another email asking all the coaches to look after their players gameshapes, what the benfits are for themselves and send the link to Soels post as well. The response was amazing and I am expecting quite a few players to have increased gameshape during the coming weeks.

About 2 weeks ago I made a shortlist from the high potential trainees as Elboss posted a week after the draft was done. I was planning to contact the coaches and ask for the progress. Unfortunately, my harddrive died :( and I need to start all over again. I will try to do it this week or I will do it next week after my skiing trip. It is best to stay on top off the training off these potentials.

Right now the future off the U21 and thus the NT looks alot better, due to the effort of some coaches in the english community. Some great players are currently being trained and I believe the future for the english team is alot brighter than it was 1 and a half season ago. Although we are on the right path, I wont rest ever!!!

Moominpapa

Needs more Innes.

innes needs to get next season to where our 21 year old guards are now and he will be a sure starter. stop giving him orange juice and give him some testosteron or so :)

innes needs to get next season to where our 21 year old guards are now and he will be a sure starter. stop giving him orange juice and give him some testosteron or so

You know Innes is an inside guy, right?

that was a typo...

innes needs to get next season to where our 21 year old bigs are now and he will be a sure starter. stop giving him orange juice and give him some testosteron or so :)

Hey, Astra, I hope you're feeling more positive now about your stint as U21 coach. You seem to have achieved much of what we hoped for, and the team is moving in the right direction. Well done.

Well done indeed. At least one of the national teams is making us proud!

ok. we won tonight in a CT vs Tie at home vs Guatamala. It got in the 4th quarter closer than I would have liked, but we won and that is what counts. Our record is now 5 - 1 and I am expecting us to jump another 5 places or so in the rankings...

Lacey 1 FT away from a perfect game -_-

Good win Astra, Germany next! 6-1 here we come ;)

Hello everyone

Time for a new update.

We lost last week vs Germany U21. We got overrun cause I played Tie. I felt this weeks game vs Taiwan is a quite even match and one that we needed to win in order to qualify for the next round. Thus far this seasons it is closer than before in the top and some teams had a crazy easy draw so a 6-2 is a must to get through to the next round. It doesnt even give you HCA for sure.

Today we played vs taiwan and we won. I expected Taiwan to CT and since we needed to win too I CTed too. I am glad I did. The final score was England 93 - 77 Taiwan. Think it would have been alot closer and perhaps too close when we would have normalled. Taiwan played an inside offensive opposed to the normal outside one that they have played more or less every game. So our 3-2 was slightly wrong, but it still stopped their super guards from scoring too many points. I was planning to play an inside offense, but at the last moment changed it to base offense and it was the right choice. Taiwan played a 2-3 defense. We got outrebounded alot, because they played with 3 bigs, but their TOs and our assists were a big help.

The key players for us were Dyce and Lumley. Selected Lumley because off his decent OD and his id and rb skills. He would normally not be my first choice, but hey cant have it all.

Contacted one or two coaches again with regards to GS and lets hope they will try to get that organised. Players like Blanco and Dillon are players we need.

With the 6-2 best score ever for the U21 england team we did qualify for the next round. Lets wait for the draw and lets hope we get a home game :) even if it is unlikely.

Laters
Moominpapa

Nice work, Astra. Good tactical thinking, good performance. Good luck against Bulgaria tomorrow!