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Hello all. Firstly thank you to all the managers who voted for me and gave me an opportunity to run the National Side for a couple of seasons, I've always wanted to do it so now it's happened, I'm excited to get going.

I've done a lot of scouting and we've got some very good players in and around the squad and have some exciting prospects who will hopefully come to fruition within the next few seasons. I do want to reiterate what I said in my speech about us being in a period of transition though, we've lost some key players over the last couple of seasons but I'm hoping we can still remain competitive.

As for the draw, we've not been given an easy group and come up against two strong nations in Italy and Germany. We've also been drawn against some competitive nations such as Turkey, Switzerland and Macedonia so our work is cut out for us, but I believe we can maybe cause an upset. Our campaign begins against Iceland which should be an easy enough win for us and then we play Turkey which will be a key indicator of how competitive we can be and our chances of qualification.

I'm going to aim to write match reports for each game to try and improve community engagement with the NT as I do feel that's dropped off slightly in recent seasons.



Last edited by js8 at 11/14/2022 06:16:13

Congratulations, and best of luck!

We made a great start with both teams, a 50pt win for the NT and 32pt for the U21. Here are the MVP polls, vote for the best performance each week!

NT poll:

(https://strawpoll.com/polls/e6Z2eQ7WXgN)

U21 poll:

(https://strawpoll.com/polls/2ayLWm66vZ4)

Iceland 103-153 England
An entertaining bucket-fest to begin the season against one of our weakest opposition in the group. A remarkable box score shows the even spread of points and assists from the starting five who all had excellent games. There was also a helpful showing from the bench as 9 out of 12 of the squad recorded double-digit hauls.

The vote is still open, but I think we've got a run away winner so the player of the match goes to Jonathan Kemp who has made an impressive start to the season.

Our next game is against Turkey, which will be difficult as they bolster a strong squad. Let's hope we can get a good GS update to give ourselves the best chance of winning.


Last edited by js8 at 11/17/2022 05:53:14

England 115-83 Belarus

Pretty dominant performance, especially in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. We started really badly, bad shooting and bad defence, but that was turned around pretty quickly. Would have preferred a better PD but with garbage time we lost a lot of the lead as our bench isn’t as strong as our starters. But overall a pretty solid win and good start to the season.

Matthew Hall was voted player of the game as he finished with 17 points and 3 assists on an efficient 7-11 shooting.

Next we face a tougher test with Mexico away (anyone fancy staying up until 2am to watch the game for me? Haha). Mexico picked up a good win away against Croatia with less effort so it’s not a game to take lightly. I’d still like to think we’re the favourites, and going 2-0 would be the perfect start ready for the rest of the draw.



Last edited by arrowspg5 at 11/17/2022 18:35:22

A spirited performance from the NT led to a narrow defeat to a strong Turkey side.

Unfortunately the U21's suffered a surprising OT loss to Mexico, despite some fantastic team ratings. Hopefully there are better times ahead in the next five games.

NT poll:

(https://strawpoll.com/polls/kjn1j56EJgQ)

U21 poll:

(https://strawpoll.com/polls/PKglzq52Ryp)

England 84-95 Mexico

One of the most shocking losses I've had in my time on BB! The team ratings show how dominant we were over Mexico in terms of talent, but somehow we struggled the whole game, managed to scrape through to OT then couldn't get the job done. A very poor loss, and not much more I can really say. The BB Gods were against us.

Matthew Hall once again has been voted player of the game. He finished with 18 points and 5 assists.

The remaining 6 games have been drawn for the consolation tournament. We face Croatia, Germany, Ghana, Macau, Panama and Romania. Not the easiest of draws given we play Germany and Romania away, but We still have a chance to qualify. 3 losses means we rely on points difference to qualify, so we can really only afford 1 more loss to guarantee qualification for the knockouts.

We next play Croatia at home. They have used normal effort in both the games so far this season giving us a good enthusiasm advantage as well as home court advantage and the superior team. It might not be a walkover, but a game I expect to win.

England 85-99 Turkey
After starting the game really well and leading the first quarter, we were unable to contain the Turkish SF who dominated us throughout the match. All five starters performed well and managed to battle it out with some really talented opponents but unfortunately due to a lack of game shape and availability of players, our bench could not match the standards set. A spirited defeat which shows us we can cause teams problems with our attack but highlights how far we are behind top nations in terms of depth. I opted with the 1-3-1 zone to try and counteract the strength of the Turkish guards and for the most part, it worked really well and I was happy with how we limited Ergul but as mentioned earlier, we couldn't contain the SF.

Next up we have Luxembourg which should be an easier game for us.

Player of the match was Magdaleno Banuelos who had a great all round game grabbing 8 boards, dishing out 9 assists and bucketing 21 points.

Last edited by js8 at 11/24/2022 17:02:39

Two solid wins for the NT's today.

The leading scorer for the NT came from the bench, and for the U21 we saw a rare (in BB) 10 assists for a single player. Vote here!

NT poll: (https://strawpoll.com/polls/7MZ0zWEKRno)
U21 poll: (https://strawpoll.com/polls/7rnzG0eP6gO)

Luxembourg 90-136 England
Another dominant display against one of the weaker teams in the group, with most of the squad contributing to a resounding win. Seven members of the team got into double figures with three eclipsing the 20 point mark. Sanders and Banuelos were up to their usual tricks scoring at a really good rate whilst Sean Hargreaves and in particular, Bart Leavy-McCarthy provided some excellent offence off the bench. RnG seemed the obvious option with most of the squad at 9GS and to try and boost our points differential as much as we could.

Next up we have Switzerland who have a decent squad, but we should still be favourites, especially if the game shapes are similar to this week. Big thanks to all the managers for their efforts this week, let's try and keep the game shape to these levels for the rest of the season.

Player of the match was Bart Leavy-McCarthy who scored at will when coming off the bench. BLM scored 26 points in 23 minutes, including four from downtown and a huge +/- of +41!

England 107-79 Croatia

Don't let the final points difference fool you, this game was a lot closer than a 28 point game, we were only ahead by 9 with 5mins to go! It was just really a crazy game between RNG and PTB which meant we got a lot of shots and a lot of runs for both teams. But in the end we showed how good we really are. 10s in both defensive ratings shows that our defence is getting to a good level which is key for success.

Matthew Hall once again earned player of the game after another impressive scoring display with 28 points along with 4 steals and 4 assists.

Next we play probably to toughest game on our schedule so far, away against Germany. It's a big game for both teams as we both look to get as high a seed as possible, and Germany already have 2 losses and a 3rd would make qualification very difficult for them. This is going to be the 3rd game against Germany in my u21 tenure, so both me and the Germany manager know each other pretty well. I'll quietly say I'm 2-0 against them, but making it 3-0 will be very difficult.

A nice result for the NT, with several excellent performances. Vote here: (https://strawpoll.com/polls/GPgV3zKvBZa)

On the other hand a tough day for the U21's, with few performances of note. Vote here: (https://strawpoll.com/polls/Q0Zp4BlwDZM)