We were playing a decent team today, Romania, I think possibly their ranking doesn't reflect their abilities, but I knew going in we had a significant enthusiasm advantage, and felt confident that home advantage would be more than enough for us to win fairly easily.
We got on top early, dominated every facet of the game and in the end were deserved 27 point winners. The one disappointing thing is that the coach replaced all the starters for the 4th quarter, something I did not expect. It would seem that let coach decide, which has never allowed garbage time, now does. Something I don't think was announced, and something I'm not entirely happy with. But what else is new?
Top scorer today was Elmo Armada in his first game of the season. He was replacing usual SF starter Connor Marshall, who I felt wasn't fit enough today. Its almost unthinkable not to start Marshall, but today Armada seemed a better choice. I think its fair to say he did a very good job.
Another thing garbage time robbed us of was the chance for Luke Innes to get a triple double. He seemed to have a strong chance being only three assists short but he sat out the entire 4th.
Overall the starters performed very well, the backups, less so really. I have a slight concern over TOs but I'm prepared to write that off as a one off.
We have two away games coming up now. I'm not sure its going to be possible to win them both, so I'm looking at all possibilities at the moment. Seeding is important but winning one of the two would be better than losing both. I'm not ruling out the chance of winning both but it will be difficult. Had we been at home the week after Germany then it could have been different.