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Meet this year under 21 squad, in salary order:

Buddy Arthur, 21, 53.8k Centre (and captain)
Our big big man veteran of last season, starting all 11 games of our final 8 run.
Transferred this offseason from Lithuania and division 3 to Australian division 2, so will be doubling as our spy in his former country's camp later in the season.
Rumours are he's stronger than a bear.
Would be better if: he could hit a free throw.

Christopher Cummins, 21, 18.9k SG (vice-cap).
Another returnee from last year. He's been billed as a star prospect for years and maybe not without reason, most likely to make a future senior NT for my money.
Bit of a party boy though, but if he's in form he might surprise an opponent or two.
Rumour: girls only want him for his money.
Would be better if: he swapped some beers for training miles.

Fod Bartolo, 21, 16.9k PG.
Only 39 minutes last year, but will hope to be a key player this time.
Clubmates with Scotty Flanagan and they push each other 1on1 after training. Current record 62-62 each.
Bartolo a bit flashier but Flannyballs will just outwork you if you take a breather.
Rumour: thinks he better than Scotty
Would be better if: less arrogant.

Ronald Allen, 21, 16.5k C.
147 mins last year, he ended the season as our 2nd big next to Arthur so they should have some chemistry already, he'll just have to beat out his clubmate Olivier for the starting role.
Northern, therefore loves anything in a pie.
Rumour: Honestly, he just misses his mum.
Would be better if: Needs to turn some of his puppy fat into man muscle.

Alex Olivier, 21, 14.7k PF.
What makes him a PF and Allen a C based on their almost identical builds? It beats me. It will be a very close thing all season which gets a starting nod, Olivier has it for week 1 and is confident of keeping it but hopefully Allen fights back.
Rumour: As a 6'7 big he idolises Draymond Green. Not a bad thing.
Would be better if: Could pass, and dribble and turn up the intensity and..like Dray.

Squad profiles on pause because this game is closer than it should be! 1 point down after quarter 1, I've full court pressed into Look Inside (always fun in itself), then we've got push the ball vs their 3-2 zone (also not great), and they've crunched and we've taken it easy! This isn't gonna be enjoyable (so pls join chat for the moral support..)

Last edited by Bergkamp at 04/23/2018 16:10:23

Vietnam 78 - 115 England

A straightforward win today, little comment to make save for our use of a reduced squad due to GS. Hopefully we have a few more for next week so we can fill out the team. Thanks for the messages and for the managers that managed to get good shape, we have a pretty good team and I really hope we can make a go of this season!

Profiles pt II:

Scotty Flanagan, 21, 14.4k SG
See earlier Fod Barolo profile, I kinda did a 2 in 1.
Rumour: Look at that head. It's the shape of a coconut...His jaws that look like they could crack one open, some say they've seen it.
Better if: he had more than allstar potential :(

Darren Irvine, 21, 13.1k PG
Born in Scotland. Eats porridge for breakfast even on the hottest summer day.
Currently transfer listed so hoping for a new team he can flourish in.
Rumour: Obsessed with Katy Perry.
Better if: He stops the above. Look at her, fine. Liking her music and watching documentaries? I hope he grows out of it.

Quillan Danson, 20, 12.6k PF
The only 20 year in the squad at the moment. Mostly here for the experience, but we also need someone to wash the kits after each game. At least we're not a football team, it's a nicer job than cleaning boots...
Rumour: He's tough, growing up with a slightly weird name will do that. Being the youngster here won't scare him...Thinks he'll steal minutes from Hank Easton by the end of the year.
Better if: He gets one more years training :)

Hank Easton, 21, 10.7k C
Has older brothers who made him watch 90s cartoons growing up so sometimes seems older than he is. Has an excellent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles / Thundercats half-sleeve tattoo.
Rumour: Trained in Gully Foyle's school of the dark arts he naturally picked up a flagrant foul in his debut u21 game.
Better if: he does that in a competitive game taking out a key opponent at the same time :D

Alfred Hawthorn, 21, 10.7k PG
Can't grow a beard yet. Until then doesn't deserve a full profile.
Rumour: His favourite player is Ricky Rubio. Playing style, he's getting there, but he'll never be happy until he can match his current facial stylings.
Better if: He had Donovan Mitchell as his backcourt partner!

Ryan Thomas, 21, 9.3k PG
Well this is my guy so he's obviously the best player on the roster.
Rumour: His official BB position will change more than twice again this season (he was a PF last week). Makes decent homemade pasta.
Better if: His manager gives him less than 93 minutes in a week :/ (I had an ingame injury! No controlling that..)


Ahh, well that nonsense got tiring. It was a good idea at the start and hoping semi-amusing for some though?

Last edited by Bergkamp at 04/23/2018 17:06:05

Good win Vecx. Dodgy from them though, Vi at SG, PTB with a 2-3 zone so presumably 3 bigs? Odd.

I'm gonna do a match report too!! I'm on a roll so better keep it going.

Moldova u21 85 - 111 England u21.

An obvious game of two halves. I thought the fast tactic + a full court press was the best way of pushing our points difference, but I was pretty scared after the first quarter. I've played BB enough to think we'd probably pull it out in the end, but some crunches from weaker teams do work, and I didn't really like the look of this one...That diminished to just a bit of unhappiness at the half when we just had a lead, but fouled less in the 2nd than the first and also scored a little better. We had a decent lead by the end of the 3rd, and then a 13-4 start to the 4th quarter gave us garbage time.
That likely helped our scoreline, a 4th quarter using FCP (and we had 2 fast offensive tactics too) can be ugly for the team using it, as our bench came in instead we were still nice and fresh and pulled away to a 26 point victory. Not quite what I hoped for, but I'll take it.

No reason or obvious way to split our top 3 for MVP votes, so Arthur, Olivier and Bartolo all get 2 each today.

Hey both the u21s and seniors play Scotland next week...LADS ON TOUR. Drinking competitions and injuries from too competitive 5-a-side allround (alternatively: we're in different countries still, but whatevs. That's not a fun narrative)

Echo what Vecx-y said on game shape. I'm working with a small squad at the moment, and honestly I think there's less depth outside of the squad than my past couple of seasons, so good game shape on those in the squad will be more important than usual. One potential guard I'd have liked to use played a full 144 minutes last week, lols. An American manager in this case...Luckily I can trust most of our current managers anyway.

Hank Easton, 21, 10.7k C
Has older brothers who made him watch 90s cartoons growing up so sometimes seems older than he is. Has an excellent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles / Thundercats half-sleeve tattoo.
Rumour: Trained in Gully Foyle's school of the dark arts he naturally picked up a flagrant foul in his debut u21 game.
Better if: he does that in a competitive game taking out a key opponent at the same time

I drafted him so I don't even have the excuse of actually looking for vicious players.

Nice to see you play fcp at representative level. I always wanted to but never quite got up the nerve.

5 in shape players, 2 of them are in our regular starting lineup... can I request we get some good gameshape?

Well we beat the Scots... shockingly bad GS and a very narrow win! There's no way we should be scraping a victory like this, we were helped by the coach playing patient and the same enth use as us, anything else probably would have resulted in a loss...

If this continues we can forget winning anything this season, I really am hoping our worst shape is behind us lol!

Anyways, onwards, hopefully we get a good draw.

Holland 82 - 99 England

The last two weeks has seen our GS bounce back and we’ve been able to put good teams out. This shone through today as Holland tried everything to win this one. Despite being 1 above us in the rankings and using a Crunch against our TIE we walked home with a solid stable performance worthy of any great game. We never looked like losing and with some fantastic performances across the team our bigs in Grierson and Corral did ya proud!

Thanks for the attention to GS from our managers. Israel next week which is not an easy game!! Hopefully we can field a good team and surprise everyone!

4 wins in 4. Looking ok so far!!

Excellent win. I remember a few seasons ago the Dutch rubbing it in by saying at the end of a game they won: "It was like playing a bot." Wonder what they're saying now.

Great win last night Vecx.

The under 21s also survived a crunch effort from Greece yesterday. Final score: 107-90.

4-0 now, but sitting 4th on PD and with the top 3 in the table left to play...At least there's no way we can finish worse than 4th. Greece was the most winnable of the big nations so I'm happy we pulled it off. Only 2 teams qualifying likely means a 5-2 record wouldn't be enough either so I'm not sure what I can do from here but I'll give it a go...

A nicely executed game overall. Hitting a great % of our FTs makes a change based on both my club sides and obviously helped. 21 assists to only 5 turnovers. + Defence wins games peeps :-B 6 steals and 6 blocks for us vs 2 and 0 for them. Honestly their defence ratings are poor, I'm questioning the manager's lineup choice.

I was worried about the guard depth / game shape anyway so I figured an injury to Flanagan 1 minute in was bad news but no, we were just about holding them off all first half, and then pulled away in the 4th quarter (why? I'm not sure..)
Hawthorn was great and outperformed my expectations of him (5/6 on FGs with 7 assists). Struggled a little defensively against a 30k PG but did well enough to have a positive game overall.
Cummins had a quiet game boxscore-wise, but had the highest +- on the team at +18. He was guarding their 27k SG and 2/8 and 2 assist to 4 TOs tells you all you need to know.
Thomas shot a bit too much but guarding someone with more salary again (24k to Thomas's 9.3k) held him to 7 points on 9 shots, and got 3 blocks.
Our bigs Allen and Arthur were in almost even matchups DMI and salarywise, and I'd say overall both sets of bigs played each other to a draw. Arthur had a couple of key steals in the 4th though that I thought turned the game. I like 8 assists for ours and only 1 for theirs as a stat also.
Olivier our best bench guy today.

MVP points: Arthur 3, Allen 2, Hawthorn 1. Thomas did a lot of work and he's my player so maybe I'm judging him more harshly and he's unlucky to miss out?

Last edited by Bergkamp at 05/15/2018 06:07:50