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Alright! The U21 enthusiasm reset has taken place and we've finally got our squad finalized. This year we have some pretty decent quality, including some up and coming youngsters. Speaking about up and coming youngsters, Wu Kung Yu will be playing his 3rd season in our U21! He's come a long way since he first suited up for us 5 months ago as a sub against Indonesia U21. Attempting to emulate him is Yang Keng Tse, who is the youngest player on our team.

We're currently badly hampered by inactivity. I had some pretty good frontrunners suddenly going MIA, and some of them aren't really worth spending roster spots to save as they don't really have high potential, or that the 7 weeks of inactivity will drop them down the pecking order. However I've got a couple of pretty good talents which I have retained, in hopes that they get a good owner next.

We are starting off with 12 players because I'm leaving space to save future talents from potential botified teams, so if you have some spare cash and is looking for a half trained product that's close to U21 (or already U21 level) player, stay tuned.

That said, here are our team for this season:
Backcourt
Ho Yun Leng
Lam Feng Jie
Tan Xin Li
Wan Tong Lai

Frontcourt
Foong Li Kum
Wu Kung Yu
Wu Seng Min
Choong Chuan Choon
Ray Moses
Teh Beng Chin
Yang Keng Tse
Tan Beng Keng

As usual, we've got an abundance of talent up front. Let's hope our boys make us proud!

We started off hot but couldn't keep it up. If you were watching the game, it felt like the GE hated us and deliberately stopped us from winning. After going on fire and bullying his opposite number, our star player Ho Yun Leng suddenly went cold, while Keith Taton suddenly stopped fouling after picking up 5 fouls early on in the game. Conspiracy? Maybe. Feels like he paid the refs at half time (or in the third).

But take a step back and look at the bigger picture, you'd realize that we were actually lucky to stay within 10 until halfway of the final frame. Miguel Ureta, their best player whose career FG% is above 50% (averaging 60% in these two seasons in fact) could only hit 3 of 8, although he did impact the game with 11 rebounds. The player with the best game shape in the team, Kondrad Desencario, went 6 of 23 from field and 2 of 7 from 3, although his shooting numbers have never been anything to shout about in the first place. It definitely was frustrating that we lost with a box score that didn't really reflect the competitiveness of the game, but then, the Filipinos certainly deserved the win. In the end, their quality was undeniable and it just made the difference.

Ho Yun Leng led the offense magnificently today, being sent to the line pretty often before the referees decided to take pity on his opposing number and stopped calling fouls against him. He carried the offense with an amazing statline of 25 points, 7 assists and 4 offensive rebounds. He even hit 50% from 3, and picked up 2 steals. However despite being hot in the 3rd, he suddenly went cold, causing him to only hit 36% of his field goals by the end of the day. Fong Li Kum also had an unimpressive shooting night, hitting 8 of 24 from the field (including 2 of 5 from 3). However, he managed to pick up 20 points for us, and contributed with 7 rebounds as well, with 2 of them being on the offensive end.

Our team generally had pretty impressive rebounding, as we outrebounded the Filipinos 52-44. We were especially active on offense, pulling down 17 offensive boards to the 7 by the Philippines U21. Majority of that were contributed by the starters, who all had at least 7 rebounds. Wu Kung Yu and Wu Seng Min were the most impressive players under the post. Wu Seng Min led the team with 14 rebounds, while Wu Kung Yu picked up a double-double with a stat line of 15 points and 10 rebounds. Wu Seng Min wasn't as good on offense, but he was our defensive fulcrum, with 3 blocks and 2 steals to go with his 10 defensive rebounds.

We will face India U21 next. Lets hope our players bring home the W this time!

Last night was tough for our boys. While a lot of Singaporean Chinese were at home with their families enjoying their reunion dinner, 7 of our boys were in Hong Kong, battling it out for our country. To make matters worse, we were plagued by injury and bad game shape this week as Fong Li Kum and Choong Chuan Choon were unavailable for us while Lam Feng Jie and Teh Beng Chin were out of shape. Well, at least they managed to celebrate CNY with their families.

Thankfully, even with 4 of our 12 players out, we still had more players than India U21, and we managed to pick up a 38 point blowout win.

Wu Kung Yu's experience in the national team showed in this game, as he led our boys to victory with an amazing double-double. He finished the game with a statline of 30 points, 29 rebounds, and 3 blocks on 13 of 16 shooting from field. He also hit all 4 of his free throws.

Ho Yun Leng also had a great game. Although he fell short of a double-double with 24 points and 9 assists, the 21 year old floor general had the highest +/- of the team with +40, while hitting 50% from the arc. Tan Xin Li was also awesome from downtown, hitting 5 of 8 three pointers to finish the game with 21 points. He also dished out 5 assists.

Our boys face Taiwan U21 next week. Let's hope for a smooth campaign!

Our boys failed to kickstart a winning streak on Monday as well fell 103-129 to Taiwan U21. Things looked pretty solid in the first quarter as we put up a great show, but slips in the following two quarters mean the game was out of reach for us.

Fong Li Kum returned back to the team in style as he hit 47 points is 36 minutes against the Taiwanese. He shot an efficient 54% from the field, but could only hit 1 of his 5 attempts from downtown. In contrast to him, Ho Yun Leng had a pretty good time from outside, hitting 3 of 4 of his 3 pointers. He finished the game with 18 points on an efficient 50% shooting, and also dished out 5 assists. The only person who managed to dish out more assists than him was Wu Kung Yu, our surprising floor general from inside, with a game high 6 assists. To round out the good performances of our boys is Yang Keng Tse, who picked up a double double with 12 points and 13 rebounds.

Our boys put in a pretty good performance, but just couldn't get the ball into the net despite creating more chances than our opponents. We also gave out a lot of free throws, and turned the ball over quite often.

That said, our boys are buoyed up and hoping to turn things around against Japan U21 next week. Let's hope they stay in shape after all that CNY cookies!

Our boys bounced back in style as they blew out Japan U21 in a very lopsided game today. The quality difference was already apparent on paper - their highest paid player won't even crack top 5 in our team. That coupled with just decent game shape meant the burden of carrying the team fell to Jirou Makioka, who very unfortunately went head to head against our star player Ho Yun Leng. This saw Makioka finish the game shooting an inefficient 35.7% while missing both of his three point attempts. He managed to pick up 12 points in total, however he couldn't really get his game going, even when placed against out of form Lam Feng Jie in the final quarter. In fact, their whole starting lineup couldn't take down our subs - they fought hard for a 14-14 in the first 8 minutes of the fourth, then trailed 6-8 in the last two minutes of the quarter, when they were brought back on for one final rally.

Fong Li Kum was once again firing on all cylinders as he scored 31 points on a very efficient 13 of 17 from the field. He also hit 5 of his 8 attempts from the charity stripe as he bullied opposite number Shinya Takishida, who had 4 fouls in the first half. Ho Yun Leng also brought out his inner DeJounte Murray, finishing with a statline of 15 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists from 33 minutes. It wouldn't be surprising that he would finish with a triple double had he played in the fourth. Meanwhile, Yang Keng Tse was the spark plugs for the bench, being the only player of the team to get a double double. He scored 15 points from 7 of 13 shots and grabbed 11 rebounds (7 offensive). The bench put up a pretty bad performance throughout the game - we only had 4 bench points going into the fourth, and they didn't even perform well in the 4th (as we can see from Wu Seng Min's 0 of 11 effort, getting blocked by Shinya Takishida a few times to save the face of the Japanese forward). However, their hustle at the boards gave us quite a few second chance points and they came out tops.

Our next game would be against U.A.E. U21. Despite being ranked 3rd last, they actually have a squad of similar quality to Japan U21. Even better, their top 2 players actually are in very good shape. Let's hope our boys manage to keep up the tempo and go on a winning streak.

We did it!

Luck wasn't really on the side of the Emiratis as they went into the game shorthanded. U.A.E. U21 usually ran their offense through their star player Abolhassan Hamid, who looked in pretty good shape this week. Sadly he picked up a bruised knee in last Thursday and suddenly our opponents lost the main fulcrum of their attack. To make matters worse, they also lost Zakariyya Mahmoud, while our boys were collectively in their best form of the season.

Our boys were in total control of the game, holding them to single digits in the first quarter and the lead blew up to 31 points by halftime. They had another single digit quarter before our bench ended the game to give us a comfortable 45-103 victory. Ho Yun Leng was our best player out there. He scored 32 points while shooting 55% from the field, hitting 4 of his 7 attempts from 3. He almost had a double-double with 9 rebounds, and also dished out 4 assists. Wu Kung Yu also narrowly missed out on a double-double with 8 points and 9 rebounds. Despite that, he was one of our best players on the defensive end, rejecting 4 shots and getting 1 steal. Wan Tong Lai was also another big contributor on the defensive end with 4 steals, although he was pretty quiet on the other end, with 6 points and 2 assists, shooting 50% from field. With garbage time giving our second unit extended minutes, several players took the chance to shine. Yang Keng Tse finished the game with a team high 10 rebounds, while Tan Xin Li and Teh Beng Chin both dished out a team high 5 assists each.

In overall, our boys had a wonderful game. Being unable to exploit their usual patient offense, U.A.E. U21 shifted their focus inside instead. However, they found it hard to get the ball inside as our boys put up some good defense and disrupted their offensive flow, causing them to not be able to get the ball inside much. This contributed to them turning the ball over 22 times. They were also forced to worse looks, hence only bring able to hit 22% of their shots, with only 5 of them being assisted shots. Meanwhile on the other end, our boys hit 53% from the field, and more than half of the shots we made came assisted. That's some pretty decent offensive flow.

We're having a break from competitive balling this week, before we take on New Zealand U21 next week. The winner of the next game should determine whether we place 3rd or 4th in the group, which should determine which pool we will end up in for the next round. Let's hope our boys keep up the good work and give us a third placed finish.

Our boys finally had a chance for a well deserved break after putting in a decent job in the Asia U21 Championship. With 3 wins, we're already one foot into the next round, with next week being an almost meaningless game against New Zealand U21, where regardless of the outcome, would see both teams qualify, unless Japan U21 defies the odds and beats Philippines U21.

However, since kiasu is our culture, we decided to go all out against Brazil U21 tonight. The Brazilians were pretty chill as they tried out something new while resting star player Amiram Glam. They also gave their lowest paid player, Galo de Moraes, some precious game time as the guard was handed a rare start.

Firing at all cylinders, our boys showed top notch defense in the first three quarters, mercilessly shutting down our opponents, while hitting them with all we got. The consequence was holding our opponents to 50 points in the first three quarters while establishing an 11 point lead. Fong Li Kum was our standout performer tonight, scoring 28 points from 57% shooting, including 2 of 3 from downtown, while Wu Kung Yu was close behind with 21 points from 10 of 14 from field. He also picked up 10 rebounds to finish the game with a double-double. Teh Beng Chin missed out on a chance to join him despite pulling down 18 rebounds. He was one field goal behind as he only managed to score 8 points. Despite hitting his omly attempt from 3, he was 3 of 17 from the field. Regardless, both bigmen were big contributors on defense, pulling down 20 rebounds between them while blocking 2 shots each. Another top contributor in defense was Ho Yun Leng, who picked up 3 steals. He was also the key facilitator of our team, dishing out a team high 5 assists.

With one more game to go for this round, the top 2 positions of most groups have more or less been set in stone. Taiwan U21 should lead our group as they face table bottom India U21, while Philippines U21 would most likely be one place behind. Pool B should see Australia come out tops, as they are we quite likely to beat Indonesia U21, who have also guaranteed their qualification. However, it remains to see whether South Korea U21 will leapfrog them in point difference after taking on table bottom Macau U21. Finally in Pool A, China U21 looks set to top their group, as they face Kazakhstan U21. This would put Thailand U21's fate in their own hands, as their match against Lebanon U21 would ultimately determine who goes through. That said, barring a landslide win by Lebanon U21, Thailand U21 should qualify in fourth.

Right now my predictions for the groupings in the next round would be:
Pool D
1. China U21
2. Hong Kong U21
3. South Korea U21
4. Thailand U21
5. Taiwan U21

Pool E
1. Australia U21
2. Iran U21
3. Malaysia U21
4. Indonesia U21
5. Philippines U21

Where will we and New Zealand U21 end up at? Or will Japan U21 cause and upset and knock one of us off? Stay tuned to find out.

And all the U21 matches in Asia has completed! First let's look at last week's prediction:
Pool D
China U21
Thailand U21
Australia U21
Indonesia U21
Taiwan U21
New Zealand U21

Pool E
Iran U21
Malaysia U21
Hong Kong U21
South Korea U21
Philippines U21
Singapore U21

Most of them were spot on, but Indonesia pulled off some impressive giant killing tonight to give Group B three 5-1 teams. Hence, Hong Kong U21 should end up at first place due to point difference, hence advancing into Pool E together with us and South Korea U21.

Meanwhile our boys pulled off an amazing 115-80 win to cap off a pretty decent qualifier. We were favourites to win on paper, thanks to our players being at tip top shape (thank you for that guys!), but even then, the margin of the score was unexpected, as New Zealand U21's quality has always been similar to ours. Well to be fair, the score didn't do the game justice, as the Kiwis kept us on our toes throughout the game. We only managed to lead by a little every quarter, and little by little we opened up the gap to double digits entering the fourth. But that was when our boys decided to take over the game. In less than 5 minutes, we hit them by 20 points while limiting them to just 8. And that was when a brain fart moment by Seth Kohler saw our golden boy Foong Li Kum mauled onto the floor and into the locker room for the rest of the game. The referee didn't call for a flagrant foul despite it being a pretty hard foul, but that sparked our boys to a 11-0 run which essentially put the game out of sight.

Despite having to leave the game on stretchers, Foong Li Kum was our best scorer of the game, scoring 29 points from 12 of 22 from field and 60% from 3. He also managed to pick up 3 steals. Isaiah Sin also impressed the audience after coming on in place of injured Foong. With 10 points to his name from the earlier part of the game, the talented SG hit 13 points in the final quarter to finish the game with 23 points in 19 minutes of game time. He was the only player who had more points than minutes in this game. Wu Seng Min also had an impressive game, finishing the game with a double-double from 22 points and 14 boards. He also dished out 4 assists.

With that, we end the first phase of the Asia U21 Championship with a game record of 4-2 and a 3 game winning streak. Let's hope our boys keep up the great work!

good luck man.. the rest if the game will be tough.. we are like super underdogs

Yes indeed. South Korea U21 promoted from a very tough group, so even in 4th place, they're pretty good. Their roster is also comparable to ours. Iran U21 also has similar quality, though they managed to beat Malaysia U21, which is amazing consider how our neighbors have 2 monsters.

Well, let's hope everything goes smoothly for us. It's definitely Hong Kong U21 and Philippines U21 making the finals from our group. But we can still try our best.

I expected a close match against the Koreans, but our boys made sure to close the game well, with a bit of help from the referees in the final quarter.

Our boys kicked off the game well, taking control of the game and was ahead by 20-14 in the first, however the Koreans came back and held us to just 10 points in the second, tying the game at 30 apiece. Our boys continued to make them work for their shots as their defense held us at bay, and after 36 minutes, a highly defensive game saw the game score as low as 43-45, with our boys trailing. This kinda reminded me of the 2005 NBA finals, with lower scores of course.

However our fate changed in the 4th. Joo-Hoi Yun, who was tied with Wu Seng Min with 5 fouls each going into the 4th, somehow got called got a random foul seconds after the quarter started and got ejected from the game. His replacement, Doug-Il Yun, fouled Wu Seng Min as he was shooting, and the ensuing free throws gave us a 5-0 lead to start the quarter. After that, our boys never looked back. We held them to a game low 13 point quarter, while we hit back with 31 points, thanks to a shot from near the logo by Ho Yun Leng.

Both teams had pretty abysmal shooting tonight, with our boys hitting splits of 34/20/58 while South Korea U21 hit 31/0/56, missing all of their 16 threes. Both teams also had a high number of turnovers, with our boys losing the ball 17 times and them losing 3 less possessions than us.

Fong Li Kum was the top scorer of our team, hitting 19 points despite having an inefficient night. This put him tied in 10th place on the most scoring per season list alongside Li Kwang Chao's effort in season 8. He currently averages 27.75 PPG, and with 4 games to go, it's very likely that he breaks the 300 point mark and overtake Kok De Seng as the player with the highest scoring season. His career total is currently at 370 points, knocking Kok De Seng off the top 10 list of most points scored for the U21.

Our boys take on Hong Kong U21 next, who are very likely to finish in top 2 after coming off a scare from our neigbours.