I almost regretted taking the Lebanon U21 game lightly when Husnan Pukhraj won the jumpball and our opponents raced to an early lead. Thankfully that did not last long, as a sharpshooting effort from Nathan Macklin gave us a slim lead in the first. He was hot from the field as he went 6 of 6 until midway through the second, and that was sufficient for us to build an unassailable lead.
The buildup to this game was bad. 5 of our 13 players had bad game shape, leaving us with only 7 serious players. Thankfully, we're blessed with a deep U21 pool. I didn't have many choices early in the season as a lot of trainers tend to push 1 on 1 much longer these days, especially for high potential players. However, we're blessed that they have managed to plug in the holes by midseason, giving me more firepower. It actually happened last week, with Phua De Keong making his debut against Lebanon U21. Sadly calling up Cheng Da Ping on Saturday morning seemed to jinx him, as he was so excited that he played too hard and broke his nose later on in the day. Thankfully, we had 2 other backups at hand, Mike Gomboting and Nathan Mackin, both who performed admirably last night, with the latter earning a double-double with a statline of 16 points, 12 rebounds and 6 assists. Zhao Choon Keong also joined him in the double-double club as he posted 15 points, 18 rebounds and an astounding 6 blocks.
Both of our star veterans also did not disappoint. Ang An Da led the team in scoring with 17 points after hitting 8 of his 12 shots from the field. He was just one assist short of a double-double. Meanwhile Chua How Feng also barely missed out on a double-double, thanks to a terrible shooting day. He missed 7 of his 11 field goal attempts, ending the game with only 8 points. However, he made it up on the other side of the court, with 2 blocks, 3 steals and 9 defensive rebounds (11 total rebounds). He now sits at 238 career rebounds for the U21 and is just 19 short of breaking into the all-time rebounding list.
We have now virtually secured qualification into the next round, as our next match is against Thailand U21, who could potentially tie us in game record should they beat us. However they would need to beat us by 57 points in order to make it through to the next round, as the point difference is too big.