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That was what I thought and I'm also glad Malta played with normal enthusiasm against Croatia, it means they won't have an advantage here.
One of our major player got injured, we could be happy it happens now so let's win and see what's next.

That was the minimum, now the serious talk begins. We will have 2 supposedly easy games and 4 challenging ones.

First, we will go to Venezuela, they started with a convincing win against our Singaporean neighbors, they won one very easy game and finally lost against the very strong Italy.

A heart breaking loss against Venezuela: we lost by 3 but were in front by 9 at the beginning of the 4th quarter, Ricky John scored a basket to give us back 1 point advantage 41 seconds before the buzzer and we had a last shoot at the buzzer which was missed by Zhen Hansi. Not having Wally Victor for 2 weeks hurts us and may have cost us the game or it may be the tactics, their PG scored 27 points and gave 10 assists, most probably because our 2-3 zone defense gave him too much spacing. Ricky John was unstoppable, our subs did a great job but in the end, their rebounds did the difference, they attempted 7 shoots and 4 free throws more than us thanks to their 16 offensive rebounds. Playing Kennedy Milano at C may have been the biggest mistake of the game.

We have two easy games with home court advantage, the first one against Armenia and the second one against Luxembourg. Winning won't be enough, we have to win with a big margin in order to get a better point difference and get higher in the final ranking. Let's do it!

Last edited by Nico4nicolas at 12/13/2015 6:39:02 AM

We did the job for the 2 easy games and we did it well, a 64-point win against Armenia followed by a 51-point win against Luxembourg. Then, we upset England, a 11-point win doesn't seem like much but in a defensive game, it was a great win. Our most recent game was against Denmark, our starting center fouled out after only 11 minutes! Despite this disadvantage, we managed to keep the pace until the last second when they missed the shoot so we went to overtime. We had the game well on track but we missed the last shoot and went for a second overtime. At the last second a foul was called on our center, 2 free-throws awarded and we trailed by 2. Unfortunately, he missed both. I feel a bit frustrated because they attempted 20 more free-throws and 3 our main players fouled out while their SG played about 20 minutes with 5 fouls without doing the 6th one. We lost our second heart-breaking game of the season and we will face a difficult choice.

I need you! Yes, you, I need YOU!

What enthusiasm should we use against Poland? If we win the game, we will qualify for next round, if we lose it, we will need a bit of luck to qualify and the closer we are, the better our odds will be. So what, do you think?
1. Take it easy and believe in our luck so we get more enthusiasm for next round.
2. Normal as we have a chance to win without spending all our enthusiasm.
3. Crunch time because we won't have another chance and we want to play at least one more official game.

Let me know what you think in a private message, I will listen to all ideas you may have.

Last edited by Nico4nicolas at 1/6/2016 5:12:05 PM

After a decent loss against Poland (-11), we managed to qualify for the knock out stage by finishing #28. We will face Slovakia, an undefeated team which will have the home court advantage. They look better than us and we have very little chance to beat them so it might be our last game this season but we won't go out without a fight!

Despite loads of talents, Malaysia U21 NT will not end up with a better than during its good seasons. Slovakia inflicted us our biggest loss of the season, it's a bit sad to finish with such a result. We did well all season long, we lost against Venezuela by 3, against Denmark by 2 after 2 overtimes and finally against the great Poland (which lost against Romania, a team we beat earlier this season). We also managed to collect a great win against England.

What is certain is that the group we had this season was a great one, maybe the best I've ever seen. I would like to thank all the managers who took good care of their players, if some didn't play as much as expected, it's because others are really good.

Next season will be a lot more difficult, the group won't be as talented as this season. Our ranking isn't the best we had so we may also have a difficult draw. Wait and see.