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Game 1 of the second round of the Asia U21 Championship tournament has begun, and after a gruelsome 48 minutes of game time, we picked up a first victory against Japan U21! The week started out pretty bad with out outside players having a game shape drop, forcing a change in tactics which saw forward Hong Jun Kwang play as a guard. However, we were lucky to have taken advantage of GDP, it proved the decisive factor in a very close game.

Yap Chu Seng was the unexpected hero of the night, scoring a team high 17 points of the bench with 7 of 8 shooting, including a 3 pointer over opposite number Makoto Kinugasa. He was also active on defense, rejecting 2 shots. Hong Jun Kwang also stood out tonight. Playing out of position, he swatted away 3 shots while locking down Japanese guards Kohzoh Okimoto and Kohzoh Motoori to a combined 15% shooting. He also drew fouls late on and hit 5 of 6 from the charity stripe.

Meanwhile Tang Yeow's fantastic night was cut short after he was taken out my opposing bigman Takahisa Ariwara near the end of the game. The 20 year old floor general had created two back to back shots to bring his tally to 7 assists before the Japanese felt that it was enough, and were forced to send him to the infirmary in order to contain him. However despite being forced out of the game, he was cleared to fly back to France and will be ready for Tuesday's league game. Seet Woon Loong also had a mixed night. Despite posting a double double (16 points, 13 rebounds), he failed to hit a lot of his shots despite being marked by a much inferior opponent, making only 8 of 21 from field. He also canned all 4 of his free throws. However his contribution on the boards and his playmaking was vital to our team.

Our next 3 games will be gruesome - with Taiwan U21, Iran U21 and Philippines U21 lined up consecutively. Damage limitation will be our priority.

LET GO LION! show taiwan we are not pushover!

LET GO LION! show taiwan we are not pushover!

Thanks to these words of encouragement, our boys pushed Taiwan U21 all the way to the final quarter. Yes, we were not a pushover at all by the 3rd quarter, clawing back from the 10 point defeat, but the final lap proved too much for our boys. We ended up losing by 10-3 points, conceding a massive 38 points in the final quarter (for the record, we held them to 34 points in total for the previous two quarters).

Credits to the manager of Taiwan U21, LEGGO, who decided to suddenly switch up his tactics this match. Previously Taiwan U21 ran by two modes. The inside oriented LI/LP for top teams, and outside isolation for lower tier teams (with the exception of Saudi Arabia U21). Comparing the levels of the teams, we were closer to the level of Indonesia U21, UAE U21 and Lebanon U21, so I had sort of predicted them to use outside isolation. However, they switched up to Motion, which made our GDP not too effective (we only got pace correct). Still, it was a fair outcome, and we had nothing to lose (since the roster quality difference between both teams were so huge).

Neo Ah Lee had a fairly horrible shooting night, making only 9 of 23 (including 2 of 4 from downtown), however he finished the night with a team high 24 points and 10 rebounds to earn himself a double double. Seet Woon Loong also had a double double, picking up 19 points and 10 rebounds. He was also our best player in defense, picking up two blocks. Meanwhile the dynamic duo Woo Feng An and Dhisna Chaddha totaled 11 assists between them as they commanded our offense well, allowing us to out-assist Taiwan U21 by 7. Unfortunately, the teamwork between our boys was still not enough to overcome the individual brilliance of our opponents.

Our next match will be against Iran U21, a team that is not too far ahead of us in world rankings, but very much ahead of us in terms of roster quality. Let's hope our boys bring their fighting spirit and put up a good game. We may not win, but at least we put on a good show.

Thanks for the reports Coach. That was a good game after all. It's easy to get blown out anytime by the big team but it was a tight 3 quarters.

Haha I will be lying if I didn't say that I was super disappointed by the outcome, but after cooling down a bit I realized that we already bit off more than we could chew. Well, in the end it was a fair result I would say. Still I was glad that we had a glimmer of hope in the middle xD

Our boys blew the match against Iran U21 last night as they fell 87-73 thanks to a dominating third quarter by the Iranians. Game shape was the main culprit of the loss today, as Waleed Khaleque was out with injury throughout the whole week, causing him to not get any minutes of game time prior to the last training update. This resulted Neo Leng Nie in earning a call-up to the team and receiving his first cap. However the youngster had butterflies in his stomach and ended up shooting blanks throughout his 9 minutes on court, scoring only once from the penalty stripe. The poor game shape and the lack balance in defense among our available players had forced me to play a zone defense in an attempt to cover up our defensive weaknesses. However it did not work well.

Ho Jun Kwang was by far the best offensive player of the night. He put the team on his shoulders and scored a game high 32 points with a 60-60-70 splits. He racked up most of our free throws tonight and sent opposite number Saman Tayebi to the bench in the third quarter as the Iranian forward picked up his 6th foul. Despite having awful defensive nights, Kwok Yi Wee and Seet Woon Loong were focused in defense. Kwok Yi Wee rejected 4 shots and picked up 11 defensive rebounds while Seet Woon Loong stole the ball 3 times. However, the lack of rebounding hurt us badly, as Iran U21 outrebounded us 39-60, including 18 offensive rebounds.

Our next match will be against Philippines U21. It's gonna be a tough match, so we will focus on damage reduction. Let's hope our players stay in good shape.

Last edited by BuzzRBeater at 8/18/2020 7:17:27 AM

didn't know they have 50k monster. hard to crack if all of them near superstar level even though they play 6-7 man lineup

Yea but I think it's a well known fact that in BB, depth means nothing and you only need to have 5 top players with a lot of stamina to win. in fact, they played with only 5 players last night and had a lucky fan on court late in the 3rd quarter because their SF fouled out. That lucky fan was somehow amazing tho, scoring from 3 and didn't really foul much when their small forward had troubles containing Ho Jun Kwang in the previous 3 quarters (although maybe it was because it was too bad to even foul him). Lucky fans are supposed to have all skills at disastrous iirc, but they seemed to perform better with it on the field xD

lucky fan scoring... seriously
that should have made the game more tight

We were handed a third straight defeat, putting us at 5th place after Japan U21 pulled off a shocking win against Iran U21. We were terrible against the Filipinos, being outrebounded 25-61, and being shut out most of the game. To make matters worse, starting Center Yap Chu Seng got injured early in the game, although his backup, Neo Ah Lee, wasn't too far behind him. Despite having our best game shape week ever since I became U21 manager, we were steamrolled by a shocking 62 points.

Seet Woon Loong was the only positive spark all night as he hit a game high 30 points. Yap Chu Seng put in a decent defensive show as well, swatting away 2 shots in his short 11 minutes on court. Other than that, there was totally nothing positive about the game.

Our next match will be against our neighbours, Malaysia U21. Judging by Japan U21 and Iran U21's games, we still have a chance to move up in standings on point difference. Let's hope things go our way.

Let go! U21 team