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Even with only 15 teams

Seniors
The senior team faced 8th ranked Belgium in their 3rd second round game. A strong first half saw England ahead 47-43. The Belgium offence started to get going in the second half as they scored 30 points in the 3rd quarter and 32 in the 4th. Unfortunately, the England offence couldn't keep up as Belgium were able to tie the game heading in to the final quarter before running away with the win by 9 points in the final period. The final score 105-96 to Belgium, both teams now hold a 1-2 record in the group. England next face 5th ranked 3-0 Poland.

Players of the game:
3 points- Kenny MacLaverty- 14 points, 16 rebounds (6 offensive) and 3 assists for MacLaverty as he dominated the glass
2 points- Dexter Barral- 16 point, 11 rebound double double for Barral as he joins his team-mate MacLaverty in the double-double club.
1 point- Ken Greene- 17 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists for Greene who played every second of the game.

Juniors
The Juniors defeated 12th ranked Germany in the 2nd knock-out round 70-56 to earn their place in the quarter-finals. A low scoring game saw England leading 38-32 at half time before a impressive 3rd quarter gave England a 18 point lead heading in to the final quarter. Germany did reduce the lead in the 4th to only 6 points with 5 minutes to go but weren't able to maintain the effort as England pulled away again. England next face 15th ranked Peru who beat Mexico in their 2nd round match.

Players of the game:
3 points- Jamie Hermann- The big guy scored 16 points along with 9 rebounds as he enters the top 10 all-time U21 rebounders and games played for England.
2 points- Andy King- King dominated the boards as he collected 18 total rebounds, 6 of the being on the offensive end. He also added 9 points.
1 point- Elvin Goodhew- 8 points, 6 rebounds in 14 minutes for the back up C who also had a +10 while on court.

Great job, and hey Joe! Long time!

Unfortunately both teams saw their competitive hopes come to an end this week as the Senior team can no longer qualify for the next round and the junior team crashed out of the consultation tournament.

Seniors
The England senior team fell to 1-3 as the lost 125-83 against Poland. Things didn’t start well as starting C Dexter Barral went down injured in the first minute but Desmond Thomas came in and the team battled hard to by tied at 26 after the first quarter. The England battle was short lived as Poland dominated the 2nd and 3rd quarters, winning them a combined 73-33 and effectively killing the game there. England will face hosts Lithuania in their final competitive game of the season.

Players of the game:
3 points- Ken Greene- always reliable Greene top scored with 20 points on an efficient 8-13 shooting.
2 points- Ian Needham- Needham had a solid game with 11 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals
1 point- Desmond Thomas- Thomas played well as a replacement for Barral as he ended with a 11 point, 13 rebound double-double.

Juniors
The junior team lost 72-62 against Peru after a bad first half proved too much to recover from. England went in to half-time down 14 points after shooting only 20% FG. The offence picked up in the 3rd quarter but dropped off again in the final period as Peru held on to win. England crash out of the world tournament at the quarter finals stage after an incredible 8-0 qualifying run.

Players of the game-
3 points- Jamie Hermann- Hermann led the team again with 13 points and 12 rebounds.
2 points- Elvin Goodhew- Goodhew grabbed 8 boards and shot 2-2 in 14minutes off the bench as the 20y/o impressed off the bench.
1 point- Andy King- another double-double for King as he finished with 10 points and 11 rebounds.

As we have reached the end of the competitive season for the junior team, here is the final MVP total for this season. This is based on the player of the game points I’ve given for each game.

In 3rd place with 9 points is SF Sivasekaran Kanjilal. He finished the NT season as joint top scorer and has had the guard some of the opposing top players to help the team to reach the quarter finals.

In 2nd place with 11 points is C Jamie Hermann. The big C has had a really strong run in the knockout games. He is now up to 8th all-time in rebounds for the junior team and 4th in games played. What a junior career for Hermann

And the winner, and MVP for the U21 team this season with 15 points is…. PF Andy King!

He finished the season as joint top scorer and 2nd in team rebounds. King had a really strong start to the season which gave him a big lead in the MVP race and despite a reduction in his scoring, Kings work on the glass gave him enough points to beat out Hermann to MVP.

Congratulations to js8 on a fantastic season and thank you to all the managers of u21 players this season who have developed their players really well and kept their game shape at a top level every week.

4 players in this squad will continue to next season (Hendriks, Goodhew, Padilla and Watkins) as we look to build from this great run in the European competition.

I was trying not to be bias towards my own players, but as both are the top scorers this season and 2nd and 3rd in rebounding I feel they're justified.

As for our ranking, at the first game of season 55 we were ranked 31st and are currently 23rd (although this may change when this weeks results are included). I would have thought by beating Australia and Germany our ranking would have jumped a little more as they were both around 10 places higher when we played them but I'm not totally sure how the rankings work

King started the season really well but his training has been really slow this season, I suspect he reached his cap, so as the season has gone on he has become less dominant as a player. Probably the reason Hermann has become more dominant later in the season.

8 places is a good leap in rankings, but the senior team has jumped from 37th at the start of the season (even 40th at one point!) to 19th and arguably both teams have been just as successful as each other season. Just doesn't make sense to me.