Sure, and don't get me wrong, I'm certainly disappointed with the outcome too and hindsight is 20/20 so I wish I would've made different decisions and that things would've played out differently. I'm not sure anyone is more upset with how that game played out than me after all the time I've invested in the team.
A few thoughts to try and give you some insight into my thinking,
- I knew this would be a tough match-up as the Senegal team that beat us, though we had an undefeated record until this final game, we barely beat them in other rounds - by 1 in our first meeting then by 5 in our second meeting on more enthusiasm. I knew they had the edge on enthusiasm coming into the game so the margin for error was going to be very slim in deciding the outcome of the game.
- I anticipated a 3-2 zone and/or an Outside guess but we weren't in a place based on gameshape and personnel to go inside, which would've been optimal with that expectation.
- Based on the gameshape of our team, which was unfortunately much worse than theirs as only 2 of our 10 top players were in 9 GS vs their top 6 players in 9 GS, and the personnel available, our team wasn't as balanced as it may've appeared at different points throughout this season.
- Considering all these things, my goal was to get the ball as often into the hands of our best offensive players and things played out how I would've liked with Matsangura taking the most shots, as he was one of our few offensive weapons in 9 gameshape. He just wasn't able to score enough in this one.
- What I think hurt us most is the fact that we were only able to draw 6 free throw shots vs their 12 and the team was only able to muster up 6 assists for the entire game.
- As has been the case with most of my teams, our defense has tended to be tougher and they did their job and our offense actually shot a very slightly better field goal percentage than them.
- I'll also note that there are a handful of managers on our South African U21 Discord, which you're welcome to join as well as I'm always open to hearing other people's thoughts, that chime in and assist in the gameplanning to try and help us think through the various scenarios.
Ultimately though, I was the one who made the decisions that I thought would give us the best opportunity to win at that time. Knowing what I know now, I obviously would've done some things differently but at that time, I'm not sure I would've. Buffery, our best player all season who was unfortunately in 7 GS this game, had a chance to win or tie in the final seconds but was unable to connect so we were very much in this game all along though that doesn't make this loss feel any better. I take ownership for the loss but am now just focused on doing better in the upcoming season.