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Dear Belgium BB Community,

First of all, huge thank you for letting me the possibility to manage again during two seasons our U21 team. I really appreciate and will do my best.

We are back to business with an other European competition, the draw put the belgiam team in the Pool D. We had a good team at the beginning of this season but i'm encounting difficulties with managing game shape for some important players so we will see.

My goal is too reach the second round of the competition again. We will fight against good and great nations so the task is not easy already.

Lietuva U21 (5) : We played against the strong team of Ignazzaz last season and were beaten by 20 points. For me, Lietuva is the best team in our pool right now.

Polska U21 (28) : I wish a lot of success to their new coach mikołajfan and can't wait to have our first game next monday.

Bulgaria U21 (33) : Thinking out loud, I have to be really carefull with this team and not under estimate them. First time i will personnaly plain against Bulgaria.

Österreich U21 (43) : Every opponent count in our Pool, it is a must win for us to reach our main objective.

Sverige U21 (50): If i counted well, it is the 13th season that Rufferto is managing the team, experienced coach where I need to avoid any trap.

Crna Gora U21 (80) : Best wishes also to Dacho 2.0 !!


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We already played our first game of this european campaign : Belgium U21 139 - Cyprus U21 114

Cyprus coach predicts an inside attack from, I'm happy to see that Nijs is important in our inside system. First W with 25 points advantage; glad with this first result but it was the least we could have done.
Other results: Poland beat Bulgaria and Lituania is already dominating the leaderboard with a +30 PA.

See you soon !

Melarius

A brief review after four matches played in our group :

Polska U21 vs. Belgium U21 99 - 119

I was quite worried before our match against Poland. I considered them to be our main rivals and that's why I preferred to play with greater enthusiasm. I should have followed the changes to the Polish roster more closely, as the coach had taken several players out before the match. Key points from this first match: De Laet made nine shotblocks and the Nijs-De Laet duo was strong on rebounds. Our guards secured the victory. Coffé and Bayet combined for 42 points, and our very own Limonta added 26 points. Good win but everything still needs to be done.

Belgium U21 vs. Lietuva U21 76 - 104

Match against the leader of our group: the aim was to test ourselves against a stronger team, as victory was out of reach. A 28-point defeat and a Lithuanian attack that ran perfectly with almost 50% success rate on field goals and three-pointers. In opposite, we had little success in attack. We were able to gather some interesting information during this match.

Sverige U21 vs. Belgium U21 100 - 122

Crucial match against Sweden, who had started the championship with two wins and one defeat. At half-time, we were leading by 8 points, and Belgium pulled away in the fourth quarter, scoring 18 more points (38-20). We played with equal enthusiasm and the victory was clearly welcome. Our inside duo had a great game in all areas (they combined for 30 points, 17 rebounds including 2 offensive rebounds, 12 assists and 4 blocks). They clearly helped us out in several areas. Bayet was on fire with 30 points scored.

Our next opponent is Bulgaria tonight! Go, young lads!

Interesting facts in the other groups:

Pool A : A big match is coming up tonight between host country Germany and Greece. In fact, the top four teams all have four wins and are all playing each other tonight, with Romania versus Estonia as well.

Pool D: a very complex, very tight and high-level group. The group of death with five teams that could potentially advance to the second round. We are watching our neighbours struggle, which does not make me particularly happy. Slovakia and Bosnia are doing well, but there are still matches to be played.

Group F: big matches also coming up with Spain set to play Hungary and Croatia in quick succession.

Pool C: Everything will be decided between England and Israel for second place, Ukraine will finish first. England beat Israel (90-74) but the Israelis have the advantage on points difference. However, the top two teams (leaderboard) still have to face each other.

Group B: The reigning European and world champions are top of their group but still have to play Finland and Russia. Second place will be decided between the latter two.

Congratulations Melarius, that was no easy feat with a team not nearly as good as the previous ones !

What already a great achievement for our Belgian BB community !! We have to keep the good work. Thank you Joe for the numbers and commenting on the fact that (indeed) we succeed to complete our main objective this season (trying to reach the second round).

I use this opportunity to made an update on the second round : we will met again with :

Greece,
Spain,
Israel and
Bosnia

that were already in our pool in season S68. We will play also against Russia that i never meet before.

Interesting second round but our level is clearly far away from the competition.

Mela

Thank you Dartreb and Guiguits.

Indeed, the team was not as good as before so we can be proud of our results this season. But i think it is important already for me to thanks the good work of the trainers that are working with me on the young lads. I must admit that our group was not the most difficult Now, second round is coming !

@Guiguits : ahah yes ! please continue to follow us next season

Please find a recap of our last three game (EC first round) :

Belgium U21 vs. Bulgaria U21 106 - 88

At this stage of the tournament, Bulgaria was our main opponent for the second place. A win was mandatory to continue with confidence. We also needed to manage our enthusiasm properly, so we took the risk of playing with low enthusiasm. Our offense got the better of the Bulgarian defense, with Coffé leading the way with 33 points. To notice, De Laet played great in defense with 5 blocks, 11 rebounds, and 5 assists coming off the bench. The W is in the pocket and we are closer to qualification.

Crna Gora U21 vs. Belgium U21 79 - 93

Fun fact, i send a message to Joe at the beginning of the game saying : damn it, it is a crunch time against us and he answered "take it easy, relax, it will be ok" Indeed, he was right. The outside focus of Montenegro was taken into account by our outside box system and we took the advantage inside. I was happy to be able to count on Windey again with game shape management better. Main scorer : De Mevergnies (21 points) and Best rebounder : Windey (16 rebounds). Important fact : Second round qualification is in the pocket !

Belgium U21 vs. Österreich U21 128 - 101

Our three starters at guards and small forward position were on fire with 89 points coming only from those guys !! (Coffé- Bayet - Limonta). Austria puts us in diffculty in the two first quarter, the game was even (58-58). We took the advantage after, especially with a great fourth quarter (34-16). I noticed that our rebounding figures were not very good (Schilling was a monster inside (6 offensive rebounds him alone). Last W of the first round.

Now we are waiting for the schedule of the second round.

Mela

Dear BB community,

Long time no see but i wanted to start this message by wishing all of you an Happy New Year ! Best wishes for 2026

I have some delay here as i was not able to post during a looong holliday period.

Israel U21 vs. Belgium U21 99 - 82

As i already stated, this second round group is full of strong teams that will challenge for a medal at the end, Israel is one of them. Before the game, i was pretty sure that our opponent would have play a neutral offense (maybe inside isolation) but i was not surprise by the inside focus of Israel for this game. Unfortunatly, my composition was not fully expected as i saw Rockelé starting the game (bad BLU and line-up from me .... ). No matter what, the results is well expected with this loss (-17 points). Israel was everywhere : 21 offensive rebounds against 7 for us, 58 rebounds in total against 34 for us, 25 PD against 12 for us, 8 int against 5 for us ... even our outside sector did have a lot of difficulties to find the net ... Nothing else to say, we were outmatched and we took a slap

Belgium U21 vs. Rossiya U21 82 - 72

I got my christmas present before christmas with this one ! 7.700.000 DMI (BE) against 16.000.000 (RU) before the game [i know that you can't fully compare two teams based on DMI only but it is somewhere a base to start]... Somes will say that this is luck and gamble from Belgium but we really prepare this game. We were pretty sure that Russia will play outside offense against us and it was the case. Bingo with our outside focus defense (zone 1-3-1) and one outside PAM. It was a defensive job with only 72 points score by the opponent. We were completly outnumbered on rebounds but that was expected. With this one in the pocket, we can start to dream a little bit of a second chance qualification game .... A lot of work still need to be done.

Hellas U21 vs. Belgium U21 98 - 75

Belgium U21 vs. España U21 66 - 79

Two games, two losses and two much better opponents than us. Very difficult to try to win, i must admit. My idea here was to take care of our point differential overall. Not so much to say, i think that the game against Spain could have been a bit closer in point difference and Greece was too much for us to handle.

Final game of this second round against Bosnia next monday !!

Take good care of you,

Mela

Bosna i Hercegovina U21 vs. Belgium U21 76 - 100

Last game of the european cup second round against Bosnia and what result for us !

Preparing for the game wasn't easy, and I have to say that Bosnia was unlucky with Rokvic's injury this weekend. On paper, we have both close level (more inside oriented for Bosnia and Tarikz have all my respects and attention for his work with the team and on their forum). I was clearly focus on this game and pay a lot of attention.

I was worried when i saw that Bosnia defends with a 1-3-1 zone on our RnG attack (well done) and also surprised when i see the neutral PAM accompanying this zone (seems more to a mistake than a choice).

Enthousiam plays his role (as we manage to have an higher ent that Bosnia, i guess) and, through the game, we saw very quickly that we had the score in our own hand. In the same time, Russia was loosing to Greece so we even had the possibility to loose by less than 18 points and still be qualified for the second chance qualification game. I would never have bet on winning by more than 20 points, and I'm still a little surprised by the margin. The tactical choices and player positioning clearly worked in our favor.

The ball movement was much better (23 PD), and we held Bosnia to a field goal percentage below 30% and below 20% from 3-point range, which is a great defensive performance.

We are now waiting to find out who our opponent will be for the last game of the S70 season and a potential World Cup qualification.

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Let's take a quick step back in the EC: we have the same four semifinalists as in season S68. The order of the matches is not the same. Spain and Italy will face each other in the semi-finals, whereas they met in the final (S68), and Israel will play against Lithuania. If I had to put money on the bet, without getting too wet, I would say it will be Italy versus Israel in the final. Good luck to all semi-finalists !