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Yes but Poland playing a SF vs Italy was the reason they lost that game.

A combination of a lack of offense, combined with no defense at SF. So yes, I'd mostly agree with that. But they made the finals blanking SF all season with no real great SF option.

Again blank lineup cares about offense and only offense.

Not sure I agree with that, but I don't have any evidence otherwise. If we had a 13/9/2/13/13/9 - 12/8/8/7 player, does he start at SF over B-Rod in a blank? I'm not sure...


If we have a unique player like B-Rod, then we can start him at SF in a LI offense. Agree there. But we won't have players like that next every season. There might be times when it's better to blank SF, than start a guard there. We've seen some of the best SG's with low IS don't perform that well in LI, no matter how good the DR is. If we don't have a good SF option, then blanking SF might be a good way to go.

Related two part question for all of you...

1. Experience is one of those things that's typically gotten ignored by the u21 (and NT) squads, but there's some pretty good reasons to believe it can have a big effect. It also seems like we have a pretty good idea who a couple of our Season 19 stars (current 20yo's) will be already.

Given that there seems to only be a couple really close games during each America's run, do you think we're in a position where we can play some of these guys this season to build up some experience in order to help our season 19 efforts? Is this something you'd consider (not just carrying the guys, but playing them)?

2. When it comes time to pick the roster, do you look at experience? For 21yo's, exp can range anywhere from 1-4... while I imagine small differences might not matter, how many skills would you be willing to compromise for 4 exp over 1-2 exp?

I am a believer in experience. My SG with 10 experience single handedly won me a game in the final 2 minutes last year after being horrible before that point. However you can't value experience highly if range of experiences is very small, like in the case of other U21'ers. The deviation would have to be much higher for me to ignore core skills for experience.

Last season our starting 5 vs Poland had 3 Exp, 3 Exp, 2 Exp, 4 Exp, 3 Exp. The one guy with 4 Exp, Brent Selby had some late FT's, but he was also the PG and he also missed two of them in the final minute and he has 8 FT. He didn't show experience there but he played well all game. Experience related? Can't be sure of that. The guy with 2 Exp, B-Rod, jacked shots up all game and was VERY streaky all season. Was the streakiness due to experience? We can't be sure. This is a complicated topic to argue, but the fact that it is complicated and hard to find clear examples of experience, shows that it can't be relied on in any U21 game.

Edit: Corrected grammar mistake. Sorry about that.

Last edited by oriolekid at 11/4/2011 1:21:30 PM

First off, I am a believer in experience as I, along with many others will say, have been able to see different players be able to take over games a single handily win games. However, I feel that doesnt happen to be the case until you getting into the higher experience levels...strong +.

As far as the team, experience will not be the deciding factor in who I choose to be on the team. I will pick the best players I feel will help the team win games.Reason being is say this is because why give up some abilities for a little extra experience? Lets say you choose a player to play that has 4 experience but 2/3 less in both JS and Passing. Do you think that guy with better experience will do better? No. The experience is helpful in late game situations but my goal is to have the best team out there every game and not have many of those "clutch" situations.

For the question of playing some 20yo players on the team, yes I may do that but not for experience. If I feel a 20yo is better then some 21yos then I would be willing to play him if it means it would put the team in a better position to win. I will not be doing that just for a little bit of an experience boost though. If a player does pop in experience because of it then it is just a bonus.

-Oggagala-

Err, hey, so, this is awkward. Unfortunately the election was cut down to the top 5 vote getters last night and you didn't make the cut. Thanks for the response though!

lol 4 of my starters got injured last year

NT team not U21

To all 5 guys still left (including the elusive jc93), a few questions:
What types of players do you not believe will have a chance in the future for making the team skill-wise?

With all the talk of niche players, how high would a certain skill have to be to be considered(and we all know OD 17+)?

How many RNG guards do you think are necessary to run an effective RnG?

Do you have any locks already on the team outside of Yi?

Lastly, what do you think is a roster minimum for the beginning of season correlating to the end of the season? Obviously you want to maximize your spots, but how many do you add at the beginning of the season?

lol 4 of my starters got injured last year

Don't know how to respond to that...? Not sure what has to do with anything

NT team not U21

This is the U21 election thread... Doesn't matter though now that the voting has been narrowed to 5 candidates.