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What already a great achievement for our Belgian BB community !! We have to keep the good work. Thank you Joe for the numbers and commenting on the fact that (indeed) we succeed to complete our main objective this season (trying to reach the second round).

I use this opportunity to made an update on the second round : we will met again with :

Greece,
Spain,
Israel and
Bosnia

that were already in our pool in season S68. We will play also against Russia that i never meet before.

Interesting second round but our level is clearly far away from the competition.

Mela

Thank you Dartreb and Guiguits.

Indeed, the team was not as good as before so we can be proud of our results this season. But i think it is important already for me to thanks the good work of the trainers that are working with me on the young lads. I must admit that our group was not the most difficult Now, second round is coming !

@Guiguits : ahah yes ! please continue to follow us next season

Please find a recap of our last three game (EC first round) :

Belgium U21 vs. Bulgaria U21 106 - 88

At this stage of the tournament, Bulgaria was our main opponent for the second place. A win was mandatory to continue with confidence. We also needed to manage our enthusiasm properly, so we took the risk of playing with low enthusiasm. Our offense got the better of the Bulgarian defense, with Coffé leading the way with 33 points. To notice, De Laet played great in defense with 5 blocks, 11 rebounds, and 5 assists coming off the bench. The W is in the pocket and we are closer to qualification.

Crna Gora U21 vs. Belgium U21 79 - 93

Fun fact, i send a message to Joe at the beginning of the game saying : damn it, it is a crunch time against us and he answered "take it easy, relax, it will be ok" Indeed, he was right. The outside focus of Montenegro was taken into account by our outside box system and we took the advantage inside. I was happy to be able to count on Windey again with game shape management better. Main scorer : De Mevergnies (21 points) and Best rebounder : Windey (16 rebounds). Important fact : Second round qualification is in the pocket !

Belgium U21 vs. Österreich U21 128 - 101

Our three starters at guards and small forward position were on fire with 89 points coming only from those guys !! (Coffé- Bayet - Limonta). Austria puts us in diffculty in the two first quarter, the game was even (58-58). We took the advantage after, especially with a great fourth quarter (34-16). I noticed that our rebounding figures were not very good (Schilling was a monster inside (6 offensive rebounds him alone). Last W of the first round.

Now we are waiting for the schedule of the second round.

Mela

Dear BB community,

Long time no see but i wanted to start this message by wishing all of you an Happy New Year ! Best wishes for 2026

I have some delay here as i was not able to post during a looong holliday period.

Israel U21 vs. Belgium U21 99 - 82

As i already stated, this second round group is full of strong teams that will challenge for a medal at the end, Israel is one of them. Before the game, i was pretty sure that our opponent would have play a neutral offense (maybe inside isolation) but i was not surprise by the inside focus of Israel for this game. Unfortunatly, my composition was not fully expected as i saw Rockelé starting the game (bad BLU and line-up from me .... ). No matter what, the results is well expected with this loss (-17 points). Israel was everywhere : 21 offensive rebounds against 7 for us, 58 rebounds in total against 34 for us, 25 PD against 12 for us, 8 int against 5 for us ... even our outside sector did have a lot of difficulties to find the net ... Nothing else to say, we were outmatched and we took a slap

Belgium U21 vs. Rossiya U21 82 - 72

I got my christmas present before christmas with this one ! 7.700.000 DMI (BE) against 16.000.000 (RU) before the game [i know that you can't fully compare two teams based on DMI only but it is somewhere a base to start]... Somes will say that this is luck and gamble from Belgium but we really prepare this game. We were pretty sure that Russia will play outside offense against us and it was the case. Bingo with our outside focus defense (zone 1-3-1) and one outside PAM. It was a defensive job with only 72 points score by the opponent. We were completly outnumbered on rebounds but that was expected. With this one in the pocket, we can start to dream a little bit of a second chance qualification game .... A lot of work still need to be done.

Hellas U21 vs. Belgium U21 98 - 75

Belgium U21 vs. España U21 66 - 79

Two games, two losses and two much better opponents than us. Very difficult to try to win, i must admit. My idea here was to take care of our point differential overall. Not so much to say, i think that the game against Spain could have been a bit closer in point difference and Greece was too much for us to handle.

Final game of this second round against Bosnia next monday !!

Take good care of you,

Mela

Bosna i Hercegovina U21 vs. Belgium U21 76 - 100

Last game of the european cup second round against Bosnia and what result for us !

Preparing for the game wasn't easy, and I have to say that Bosnia was unlucky with Rokvic's injury this weekend. On paper, we have both close level (more inside oriented for Bosnia and Tarikz have all my respects and attention for his work with the team and on their forum). I was clearly focus on this game and pay a lot of attention.

I was worried when i saw that Bosnia defends with a 1-3-1 zone on our RnG attack (well done) and also surprised when i see the neutral PAM accompanying this zone (seems more to a mistake than a choice).

Enthousiam plays his role (as we manage to have an higher ent that Bosnia, i guess) and, through the game, we saw very quickly that we had the score in our own hand. In the same time, Russia was loosing to Greece so we even had the possibility to loose by less than 18 points and still be qualified for the second chance qualification game. I would never have bet on winning by more than 20 points, and I'm still a little surprised by the margin. The tactical choices and player positioning clearly worked in our favor.

The ball movement was much better (23 PD), and we held Bosnia to a field goal percentage below 30% and below 20% from 3-point range, which is a great defensive performance.

We are now waiting to find out who our opponent will be for the last game of the S70 season and a potential World Cup qualification.

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Let's take a quick step back in the EC: we have the same four semifinalists as in season S68. The order of the matches is not the same. Spain and Italy will face each other in the semi-finals, whereas they met in the final (S68), and Israel will play against Lithuania. If I had to put money on the bet, without getting too wet, I would say it will be Italy versus Israel in the final. Good luck to all semi-finalists !

Belgium U21 vs. Pilipinas U21 93 - 81

Second chance qualification game !

Apart from a more stressful fourth quarter, the team controlled the game and secured a place in the next World Cup. Third time in a row for the U21 Belgian Team

Limonta's injury in the third quarter broke our offensive momentum (he was the top scorer with 22 points even with his injury). Once again, our defenders' strong defensive play enabled us to win.

We are ending the season on a high note, and our young players will be competing in the World Cup next season.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the coaches who have helped us this season:

- Vincent Nijs (CikaPeki) : Thank you for our big guy this season, a pleasure to work with you.

- Dieu-Donné Limonta (SjnellePlanga): Strong work on your player, nice collaboration ! Hope to have you again in the team

- Bayet and Coffé (Kingsman): You trained our main scorers this season with Limonta and they were also nice defenders at the end. Happy to have work with you

- Ludwikowksi (Hoheti): Our perimeter guard, you said that your player would not be interesting for U21 but at the end, he played a lot ! Thanks !

- Lewis Jacobs (C3C): A late moove but an important one, next time tell me earlier that you have gems in your team

- The Tiger Huysegoms (MrJ): Nice collaboration with you on Huysegoms, do not hesitate to train an other belgian guy !

- Yaman Balsu (Critical): I think every year or two, you have players in the team ready to play and in shape ! Huge advantage to have you also as a trainer We keep the good work !

Thank you also to all coaches involved in the process !

See you next season, now it's time for rookies !!

Mela

Congratulations. You did great with little at hand (well, not little, but less than before anyway). You can be proud of you !