BuzzerBeater Forums

Hi all,

Firstly, thank you for everyone that voted for me to be re-elected as NT coach. It’s an honour to do the job.

On to the season, we have been drawn in a group against the hosts Germany, Serbia, Czech Republic, Norway, Wales, Slovakia and Ukraine. We are drawn as the 2nd highest ranked team in the group behind Germany, but Serbia also look very strong. If we have good game shape management and good training development I believe we are good enough to qualify from the first group.

We start our season against Czech Republic who have a team full of HOF potential players, I believe we have a stronger team and will be hoping for a convincing win.

I will try and get match reports/summaries out a few days after the games, and I am also active in the BB England discord channel where I will discuss my thoughts on the games and the development of the team.

Here are the current rankings:

12 Deutschland U21
21 England U21
23 Srbija U21
39 Slovensko U21
42 Norge U21
55 Ceska Rep. U21
62 Ukraina U21
97 Cymru U21

Germany won the consolation tournament last season with a victory away to Serbia.
Slovakia reached the last 16, Norway and Ukraine the last 32, Czech Republic and Wales did not reach the second phase.

I'll be assisting arrows again, and am looking forward to seeing what we can achieve this season. I'll echo the above that training and gameshape are crucial - our squad is currently 15 players, so if your players are in high GS they have a great chance of being part of the rotation.

Also in the interests of full disclosure, as part of the assistant role I have access to the U21 player data. I don't look up players my team is about to face, but if you have a guy in the actual U21 squad or he is one of the top prospects for his age group then I'll roughly know his skills from memory.

At U21 level I don't think there is much advantage anyway - most young players aren't developed enough to be important players at club level, and no-one in the current U21 squad is in my series. However I thought I'd mention it after the issue that occured with the NT at the end of last season, and following on from this post (315952.20) where one suggestion was to make the NT/U21 staff more transparent.

Also in the interests of full disclosure, as part of the assistant role I have access to the U21 player data. I don't look up players my team is about to face, but if you have a guy in the actual U21 squad or he is one of the top prospects for his age group then I'll roughly know his skills from memory.

To add to this, all player data of players now older than 21 that were previously on the database has been deleted so the only information we have from players older are from memory.

GDPR for virtual players! Awesome 😎

Got to keep everyone's data safe!

Our first competitive U21 game of the season is in the books, so it's time to vote for our first MVP of s58. We have a bunch of fresh players in the squad, but the three options from the first game will be familiar to anyone who followed the team last season!

(https://strawpoll.com/polls/X3nk6o80ByE)

England 108-66 Czech Republic

We made a strong start to the continental competition with a 42 point win over 55th ranked Czech Republic. It was a first half domination as we held them to only 25 points and taking a 37 point lead in to the break. Both offensively and defensively we were very effective and efficient. We shot 52% FG and 42% 3FG and had a 2.4 assist/turnover ratio. Defensively we restricted Czech Republic to only 25%FG and forced a 0.54 assist/turnover ratio.

Leeds City Ballers Academy trio Bondi, Fawaz and Lyons led the team in scoring combining for 57 points, with Bondi top scoring with 25 points on only 12 shot attempts. All 12 players scored a point and contributed through either assisting, rebounding or steals. A strong team performance.

Game 1 has gone perfectly and now we move on to face 42nd ranked Norway in the next game.

As much as it pains me to vote for a Leeds player I will. Bondi! Life's a beach!

Shawn Bondi of Leeds City Ballers Academy is our first MVP of the season!

He's up for selection again this week, alongside two new faces. Vote here: (https://strawpoll.com/polls/eJnv71Prmgv)

s58 MVP's:

Shawn Bondi 1 (2 career)

England 114-92 Norway

England juniors made it 2-0 for the season with a convincing win over Norway. Shawn Bondi top scored once again with 26 points as he was aggressive getting to the free throw line, especially in the first half. Art Johnston also had strong game with 18 points and 11 rebounds. Danny Choudhry and Brodie Wulf carried the bench unit as Choudhry scored 18 points on 18 minutes on 7-9 shooting and Wulf had a 13 point, 10 rebound double double.

7 players scored in double figures showing the depth of the squad, while only 1 player failed to score but that was due to injury. Once again we had a good assist/turnover ratio of 3, as we continued to make good offensive plays.

We next play Serbia who will be competing with us for qualification. They are also 2-0 and sit top of the group after 2 games.

Last week's winner was again Shawn Bondi!

s58 MVP's:

Shawn Bondi 2 (3 career)

A disappointing result tonight, latest poll: (https://strawpoll.com/polls/e2navMbPMgB)