As the sun descends in the cloudless Irish sky, it illuminates a beautiful range of colors that decorate the mountains, streams, forests, and basketball fans, inspiring freedom, love, pride, and hope. The end of this season brought the first joy any Irish U21 fan has felt in a year. The yearning for development, progress, and wins had almost dried out due to the hopelessness of previous crusades.
Among the ashes of rubble and ruin emerged a coach, scared and humbled by his controversial past. The chosen one, elected by the people, for the people – and like the mailman, he delivered. It may not have fit in the mailbox or even been the right address, but the train of progress and consistency has begun once again.
A dream of being in the top 65 in the world, after dwelling in the depths of 90+ for quite some time, seemed far-fetched. However, we have reached a mark of 62nd in the world. A neat record of 4-5 competitively, which could have easily swung up or down, was marked with highs of beating a team ranked 25th in the world and lows of losing games due to bad tactics. A slap on the wrist and a few wooden spoons have been broken on the coach’s perky rear, and lessons have been learned. These areas where we have fallen short have been accepted by the greater public, as there is far more good than bad for the first time in a long time, since this coach's previous and glorious stint. The team finished the overall season with a 6-7 record, with friendlies balancing the books.
As tradition, we say goodbye to our growing stars and wish them the best. There are some unique talents that may eventually represent the Irish team:
Rick Moynihan
(53530545) broke the single-season record for assists with 84!
Kevin O’Keefe
(53256356) sturdy and effective
Gareth Halford
(53256399) another beautiful starter
Alex Jennings
(53597746)Roy Meimaris
(53189633)Marcel Connery
(53530593)Cory Sheehy
(53530540)Last edited by cahill at 4/1/2025 7:31:04 AM