Season 72 is almost finished, and I haven't done a single report
To be honest, the consolation tournament format is not very attractive and the motivation of most teams in questionable. In addition, our schedule for this season was very uninspiring. It was easy enough, that we could hope of qualifying to the playoffs, but definitely too hard to allow us to dream of something bigger. Here I am mostly referring to the strength of lower ranked teams, which were all better that their ranking suggested, meaning we had no easy matches, while some other teams did.
At the end, the score is very typical for us - 5 wins , three losses, which yielded 31st place in the regular part, and a not so tight loss in the playoffs against Romania. A few words about each game:
Ireland (away) Win 117-97
(84675). Ranked 90th, Ireland was definitely stronger than anticipated by ranking. Ultimately we won by 20, but if they had gone into the game with higher attitude (and us with lower), it might have been a devastating loss for us, so we could not affor to gamble here, this was a "must-win" game.
Netherlands (home): Loss 93-107 (
(84715)). A game against a strong opponent, I really hoped HCA would hold us closer to them, but with our poor game shapes and lower ent, they proved to be a much better team in the game. Both teams played TIE, a good decision for us.
Morocco (away): Loss 77-100 (
(84759)). Another game where the opponent was ranked (74th at the time) much lower than their realistic quality was. Currently they are already 49th, and have a very good team. I suspected playing in their court would mean very low chances for us, which proved to be right, so no regrets taking it easy that day.
Puerto Rico (home): Win 134-108
(84808). Probably the easiest of all games, but even here we didn't bring the match into a garbage time, although it was always clear we will win.
Argentina (away): Loss 88-107
(84854). They went with higher attitude against us, which eliminated all doubt of the eventual winner. But even with the same attitude, they would most likely win, since we are talking about the same quality team (or slightly better), but with a HCA the difference becomes noticeable.
After the Argentina match it was clear we needed three wins in three delicate games:
Austria (home): Win 109-97 (
(84913)). I gambled a bit with TIE, since the next game was also predicted to be quite difficult, but luckily Austria also went TIE into the game. Their 2-3 zone against our Low post gave me some doubts, but ultimately the game was decided in the last quarter, where we won quite convincingly.
Tunisia (away): Win 82-80 (
(84931)). A very difficult match, which was won with two free throws 3 s until the end. Luckily we went with normal attitude here (and TIE the game before), or it would have ended badly.
UAE (home): Win 111-96 (
(84991)). The game was difficult mostly due to the correctly anticipated CT attack by UAE, which always makes you feel a bit uncomfortable. Luckily the quality prevailed at the end, but the first three quarters were very close.
As written above, we faced Romania in the round of 32. We had realistic chances, but again had much problems with the GS of PC/C players (while PG/SG/SF positions were in a very good GS). Naturally we went CT into the game, since even getting to top 16 would be a nice success for us, but Romanians played a bit too conservative with N. This meant they won convincingly (112-100 (
(85188)) against us, but it cost them for the next game against Slovenia, where they got eliminated much too early, given their #2 position in the round robin phase of the tournament.
Ultimately, the season was OK, but nothing to really remember it by. Some inside players are now almost matured, which means we will have more depth in the future, and I hope we will get a breakthrough
Last edited by Deschamps at 7/20/2026 8:20:55 AM