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U21 season is upon us! Despite being drawn against teams with lower rankings than us in our first two games, we have been hit with some string of bad luck. First, one of our players was hit with a 2 week injury. Then we had another player put on the transfer list (due to his manager going bot, but thankfully he's got a good new owner now), giving him a hit in GS. Now, with yesterday's training update, we had a few other players who were hit with bad GS, including 2 of our key players, who never had this problem in prior seasons. As the enthusiasm reset is tomorrow, I have dropped a couple of new players with bad GS and am trying to sort things out with their respective owners. They should be reinstated after I get assurance that their GS will be well taken care of. Meanwhile, let's hope those that weren't dropped would continue to contribute like they did last season.

Anyway, a summary of this season's team. While we don't have any really outstanding and dominating stars, our depth at the backcourt is the best we've ever had. However, unlike a few seasons ago, our front court is pretty thin. Regardless, here is our initial team for this season:

Backcourt:
Lee Tse Yeng
Called up last season, he was a regular for our team, playing 13 matches and starting 5. Expect him to feature heavily for us this season

Phang Yun Tze
A newcomer to the team. Has shades of Fong Li Kum in him, so expect him to contribute well to our offense.

Mo Shun Ze
One of our best players this season, and managed to start quite a few times last season, despite not featuring much last season. Look forward to seeing him more often this season.

Ang An Da & Ghanya Subbaraman
Ex NT coach LDS really knows how to build players right. Despite being newcomers to the team, they're two of our top players this season, so expect quite a punch from this dynamic duo. What's even better is that Ang An Da is just 20 and will still feature for us next season.

Chris Jinuli
Another newcomer. Despite being a guard, his height means he's probably destined to be a SF in the future. Let's hope he makes the NT as well in the future!

Eddie Wally
Poor guy lost his club at the start of the season, but thankfully has been picked up by a great club! He made his debut for us last Monday against Panama U21. Look forward to see him play more games throughout this season.


Front Court:
Choo De Chao
Made his debut for us last Monday against Panama U21. Pretty decent all-round player, expect him to feature quite often for us this season.

Wong Siong Da
He played one full season as Soh Feng How's understudy at U21 level, and while he continues to stay in that role with Wuhou, he is out to carve his name in the U21 history books this season.

Chan Soon Yun
Another local product, but unlike Wong Siong Da, he just earned his call up this season. He might not be the highest earner of the team, but he likes to get his hands dirty at the defensive end.

Ehsanul Qalander
Another newcomer who has a bright future. Keep tabs on him if you want to catch a glimpse of a future NT player.

Muntahakhan Bhatti
You might think he's another newcomer, but no! He featured quite a lot for us 2 seasons ago, and is back for more! Sadly he got injured early on in the season, so we'll have to wait to see him in action.

Chua How Feng
The youngest player in our squad last season, and one of the youngest this season. Like Ang An Da, he's got another season of U21 coming up next season, despite being one of our stars. Would he be able to break any U21 records?

We still have 2 other players on the standby list, so you can expect more additions to come. Let's hope everything goes well this season.

congratz for your winning after 3OT.. that was a close game

Thanks! It was a tough game indeed. Both teams are quite close in terms of strength, and I'm glad that Mo Shun Ze's game shape problem was fixed this week. He was definitely the X-Factor going into this match. Let's hope he keeps his game shape up.

Our campaign this season has kinda been marred by game shape issues. Eddie Wally left an inactive team via free agency and landed in another inactive team. Chua How Feng rebounded from his early game shape problems but is still stuck ay 7. Thank goodness the rest of the team are recovering (and that we have our deepest team in the past 12 seasons).

Once our player's game shape is fixed, I can see us making the next round.

MIDSEASON REPORT
I wasn't kidding when I said this is the deepest U21 team I've ever coached. Sitting at 23rd place of the standings with a 4-2 record, we are enroute to our first knockout round in the U21 Consolation Tournament since season 45. All that is thanks to our second unit for carrying us when our opponents rested their stars.

In the last 4 games, our second unit had very often cut the lead of our opponents or extended our lead beyond our opponents' reach. In our last game, even though our magnificent starters put an awesome defensive game (3 blocks each from Ghanya Subbaraman, Chua How Feng and Mo Shun Ze), it was our second unit who stepped up and left Puerto Rico U21 in the dust. All of them had double digit +/-, with a combined +66 among 5 players, while none of our starters had double digits in +/-, and 3 of them were below +5. Of course, they had a tougher time playing against better opponents, but it was thanks to the effort of the bench that prevented our opponents from staging a comeback.

The 3OT thriller against Czech Republic U21 had a similar scenario, with all subs who played more than 1 minute having positive +/- (I swear I don't know how Chris Jinuli managed a -6 in less than 1 minute), while Lee Tse Yeng was the only starter to join them. Even in the loss against Ireland U21, our starters all had a larger +/- than -5, with the worst being Wong Siong Da with -13, however none of our bench players had a larger +/- than -4.

That said, we've got 2 more matches to go - one with Kazakhstan U21, and another with our lovely neighbors Malaysia U21. I foresee the last matchup to be the crucial one that decides our knockout round qualification, so let's hope everything goes smoothly.

In terms of our early season GS struggles, our boys seem to have gotten back on track, other than Eddie Wally, who seems to be cursed because every franchise he plays for just closes down (well his current team isn't dead yet but he's likely hitting free agency again soon). Mo Shun Ze and Chua How Femg have also sorted out their early season GS struggles, so expect to see them start more often once they keep it up.

ahhh a heart breaking lost. Ang Dan da feel gulity for the last buzzerbeater shot. Really need to ramp up those 2 offensive skill :(

Yea I was crushed. We were practically robbed of the win. If only Chua How Feng didn't get KOed we might have won it comfortably. We certainly didn't deserve the loss after keeping things close throughout the stretch.

That said, thank goodness we still made it into the next round. The gamble paid off and we're off to the next round.

Sadly it looks like PH and TW are frontrunners to win their tie, which means it's very likely we can't win home court advantage for the Asia qualifiers next season. Well, at least we tried. Let's hope our boys put on a good show against Belgium U21.

Our journey finally came to an end against Belgium U21. Our boys tried their best but could not overcome their superior quality.

This season was an interesting one. We didn't have a clear star player like we usually do. But this squad is really the deepest I've ever had. No kidding. We were marred by game shape issues most of the season. Mo Shun Ze only featured for 5 games despite being the highest paid player. Chua How Feng, our best post player, missed some games early in the season due to game shape issues as well. Eddie Wally, while not expected to have a large role was out for most of the season, thanks to his horrible luck at finding a home. Thankfully, the rest of the squad stepped up.

With our season ending, let's look at the most outstanding players of the team:

Mr Reliable: Ghanya Subbaraman
He's one of the only two players to play every single game this season and started 6 of them. Despite being a playmaker, he expanded his role to the wings and eventually started some games at SF and even led the team in scoring twice. He's definitely the guy who's always there when we need him.

Honorable mention: Ehsanul Qalander. He's the other player who has been ever present for us. However he has a smaller impact than Ghanya.

Hot Shot: Lee Tse Yeng
A reliable servant to the team, Lee Tse Yeng is a great combo guard. Having played 13 games last season, he featured in all but one of our games this season - coincidentally it was the walkover win against Guatemala. He led our team in scoring 3 times this season - once more than Ghanya Subramaniam and Mo Shun Ze. Although that isn't really a big difference, but he also leads our team in points scored (129) and points per game (14.3). It might be a far cry from previous seasons where we had high volume scorers, but in a team where everyone steps up, it is quite a decent performance.

Honorable mention: Mo Shun Ze. His lack of game time might probably be a factor why we see him here. Having only played 5 games, he led the team in scoring twice (which is a whopping 40%) and has an average of 14.2 point per game. His game average might be a bit higher had I not gambled on playing him when he had 7 game shape against Malaysia U21, where he went 0-5 to finish the game scoreless.

Gym Rat: Mo Shun Ze
Starting off as a pure scorer, Mo Shun Ze brushed up his playmaking and defense throughout the season and had the most number of training pops. That said, it would have been useful if he was on court more often. Couldn't really blame his manager tho, he had pretty sufficient minutes week in week out, but he just couldn't get in form.

Honorable mention: Ang An Da. Youth is definitely on his side, but considering he only popped as much as the older Mo Shun Ze, he falls short. That said, he managed to cover his glaring holes in defense while transitioning from an end of the bench player to a regular starter, starting 5 of 9 matches he played in this season. Look forward to see him flourish more next season.

Gate Keeper: Muntahakhan Bhatti
His numbers might be helped by his lack of game time, but it also took an astounding 9 block 2 steal game to bump his season average to 2.75 blocks per game. Just one block shy of a triple double, he put in the most amazing defensive effort our players had this season.

Honorable mention: Chua How Feng. 16 blocks in 9 games might not be what you call impressive, but he has certainly been our most reliable defender so far. It was a tough call between him and the Mo Shun Ze, who's 7 steal performance was pretty spectacular as well. But in the end it is Chua How Feng who brought our team more value on defense.

With the season over, I might be looking to drop some players and bring in some fresh faces for next season. Stay tuned to see if there will be any changes.

thank man. didnt know Ghanya Subbaraman like to score so much.. sad that this is the last season for u21😂

Haha, neither did I expect that. But he stepped up when needed. Even last night he showed some sparks with Ang An Da feeding each other and scoring for a few runs.

Well, I guess his next destination will be the NT!