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Canada U21 - Season 16

Last season, the Canadian U21 team barely missed qualifying for the world championships, and ended up playing in the consolation round. While there were many exciting games, and close victories, the consolation round schedule we were given proved to be a little bit too difficult for us to finish as the highest ranked team from the Americas. That honour went to Peru, so in season 16, the U21 team will be off to Peru to compete in the next round of the Americas Championships.

Our first round schedule this season starts off with what should be some easy games. With that in mind, I think it makes sense to begin with 10 or 11 players, and make additions later as needed. The main candidates for the team, and the selection process, will be covered in a training camp thread (182958.1). As I've done in the past, I plan to do write-ups on every player that joins the team this season, whenever they are officially added.

Our goal for this season, as always, will be to do as well as the team is able to do. The ultimate goal will be to secure a top 2 spot, and a direct ticket to the season 17 world championships. It would take an amazing season for us to come away with one of those tickets, but with all of the games yet to be played, we're going to do our best to pull off the amazing.

Like previous seasons, this thread will be used to highlight the progress of the U21, and to regularly direct everyone's attention to the BB Canada off-site forum for more details: http://bbcanada.forumotion.com. The artist formely known as GM-RiP (24916) is the one who handles invites to join this forum. Sign up, and send him a BB-Mail, if you are a Canadian user, and would like to join our detailed top secret discussions of all things related to the National Teams.

I'd like to thank everyone for the chance to manage the U21 again in Seasons 16 and 17. It's been an adventure for the last four seasons, and I look forward to many more exciting games and fun times out on the court.

Last edited by The Mogul at 4/29/2011 10:51:55 AM

Season 16 started off smoothly for us, with a 111-48 win over Barbados (14658). For this opening game, we only used 8 players, to keep some extra roster flexibility for future weeks (in terms of using our callup spots). It's very likely that a couple more players will be added for the game against Venezuela next week. Here's the full overview of our round one schedule (all games are in Peru):

May 2 - Barbados (W: 111-48)
May 9 - Venezuela
May 16 - (no game; scrimmage)
May 23 - Bahamas
May 30 - Uruguay
June 6 - Costa Rica
June 13 - @Peru

The top 4 teams from our group (Pool A) will move on the next round. For us, the main thing at stake in Pool A is seeding. Looking ahead to round 2, the #1 and #4 place teams will end up in Pool D, while the #2 and #3 teams will end up in Pool E.

Last edited by The Mogul at 5/3/2011 2:09:54 PM

In a very unusual game, the Canadian U21 team managed to pull off an exciting 94-89 win over Venezuela. For the first 3 quarters, Venezuela was able to build up a 16 point lead, and the score was 61-78 with 12 minutes to play. Over the last 12 minutes, however, the Canadians went into extreme mode on both ends of the court. The final results for the fourth quater ended up being 33-11 in Canada's favour, and that kind of rally is not something I've seen very often.

We needed almost the whole fourth quater to complete the comeback. We finally took the lead, 88-86, when Diant Stronks hit a clutch 3 pointer with just 45 seconds remaining. After a Stavridis layup stretched the lead to 4 points, we were able to hold in the final seconds, and come away with the victory.

The standout name on the box score for us tonight is probably Paweł Niestępski. He led the team in shots (22), points scored (23), rebounds (17), plus/minus (+12), and played ok defensively at the PF spot against an inside attack. If I had a game ball for this one, I think I'd hand it to Paweł.

Next week, we get a break from our main schedule, and will be playing a scrimmage. After that, the action should continue steadily for the rest of the season (more or less :P).

Last edited by The Mogul at 5/9/2011 9:21:11 PM

Very impressive victory even when it looked like it could be trouble.

congratulations very good game

Time for another U21 update!

Last week, Canada cruised to a 115-42 victory against The Bahamas. This week, we faced a stronger team, but still managed an 82-77 win over Uruguay. The starting lineup of Stavridis, Hadley, Stronks, Castro, and Massicotte played very well together, with Hadley and Stronks combining for 36 of Canada's 82 points. Griffin, the owner of those two players, must have enjoyed seeing that. :) For me, the x-factor in the game ended up being David Castro, and he provided a much needed stellar performance from one of our big man spots.

Canada is now 4-0 in round one action of the Americas Championships. Next week, we play Costa Rica, and we follow that up with a game against Peru, the tournament hosts. We then will move on to a new group, and round 2 action.

play taylor cutler more imo

Update time! Follow that dolphin!

Round 1 of the Americas Championships ended up going well for us, with big wins over both Costa Rica (104-60) and Peru (64-43). The result against Peru was especially encouraging, and was a very entertaining defensive slugfest....if you like games where neither team can score. :P These 2 wins left us with a 6-0 record, and the number 1 seed in our group.

The #1 seed in Pool A resulted in us being sent to Pool D, along with Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, the United States, and Venezuela (listed in the order of our schedule). Here's the story so far....

We started out by facing a strong team from Colombia, which was perhaps a bit stronger than I gave them credit for. I expected a very low scoring defensive game, and that's what we got. Unfortunately, Colombia chose to use an extra level of effort, and that was too much for Canada to overcome. Only 2 of our players, Castro and Massicotte, reached double digit points, and Colombia pulled out a 65-57 victory.

The next week, against Chile, we expected another very tough game. Luckily for us, we managed to get our offense humming, and were in control the whole game. Playing at equal effort, the final score ended up being 97-80. A lot of our players had great games, but I'd like to make special mention of Rudolph Lentz. In only 20 minutes, Lentz put up 23 points on just 12 shots, while playing great defense and posting a +16 rating. That line certainly impressed me, and was a big reason that we were able to pull off a key win.

The situation in our group is now very complicated. Colombia has beaten Canada, Canada has beaten Chile, and Chile has beaten the U.S. That kind of start to a group is not something you see every season, and just about anything could end up happening as we head into the stretch run. There is the potential for a crazy finish to things, and a wild ride for everyone interested in the U21 teams...maybe not a Mr.Toad's wild ride, but a wild ride nonetheless.

Last edited by The Mogul at 6/28/2011 2:25:06 PM

And the season 16 wild ride has come to an end....here's a quick recap of the last few weeks:

July 4 - Ecuador: 92-71 win (we absorbed a crunch with no trouble)
July 11 - United States: 80-96 loss (took some risks, swung as hard as we could, promptly fell down)
July 18 - Venezueala: 70-87 loss (still reeling from the U.S. game, we were unable to pull out a win that had a chance to put us as high as 2nd place, depending on point differential).

Those 2 recent losses knocked our round 2 record down to 2-3, and we ended up with 5th place. That means we will be going straight to the consolation round to begin season 17. This isn't such a bad thing, as it will give us a head start on trying to win home court for the season 18 Americas Championships.

Before the consolation round starts, we will have 2 scrimmages (July 25th and August 1st). In these games, some of the top candidates for the season 17 team will get a chance to see some action. The team will be officially selected prior to the first consolation round game on August 8th.

Thanks everyone for another fun season, and I look forward to starting the next one soon. :)