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Thank you! Hopefully things will go our way, it would be great to have our first trophy since season 36.

Win vs Saudi Arabia U21: 106-80
Here we are folks! One foot in the semi finals, one hand on our first bronze trophy since season 36. 32 seasons, 5 managers (although to be fair one of them is Big Ben, who won us 2 trophies, including a silver trophy), and we are finally close to winning some silverware. The only way we won't win it is if we lose by 22 points to Kazakhstan, or Saudi Arabia erases their 57 point deficit against us if we lose by a smaller margin.

The thought process when going into the game was whether or not we should conserve enthusiasm. Saudi Arabia U21 was one of our biggest challengers for the semi finals. Would they see us as a threat? Turns out, they didn't. Do I regret not matching their effort? Well kinda. I initially thought it was fine, since we were leading by 40 points at the start of the fourth. But garbage time happened (we were on a 23-9 run). Had the game ended there and then, we'd have a larger point cushion. But the Saudis fought back and cut the lead by almost 20 points. Judging by this game, we honestly could have won easily without needing extra effort. Well, screw you garbage time (in case you don't know, I've been a huge critic of garbage time over the years. Seems stupid that a game which uses PD as tie breakers actually implements garbage time).

6 players hit double figures tonight, and 3 of them were our subs. Thong Chong Lai was our best scorer tonight with 21 points, shooting 53% from the field and hitting 3 of 4 shots from downtown. He also put up 2 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 steal. If you think that's impressive, Kum Fu Keong also wowed the crowd with 19 points and 5 rebounds. But the most impressive part is his efficiency - he shot 80% from the field, including all 3 of his three point attempts. Jimmy Elbert and Seah Yew Shi might have missed out on a lot of action out at front, but they still managed to stamp their authority at the post, pulling down 17 and 13 rebounds respectively. Jimmy even blocked 2 shots.

We'll be facing Kazakhstan U21 next. One last game to go with the semifinals on the line. I'm pretty thankful that the pressure is off us. Even then, I don't think we should relax as I'm pretty sure they will be using Crunch Time against us.

Last edited by BuzzRBeater at 6/24/2025 5:56:04 AM

u did what you can.. lets gooooooo

Great job man I didn't thought we could pull it off but you did it as always. Now we can go easy for last match even if we lose last game with low differences with could save some enthusiasm but I don't think we could beat Taiwan they are really good players and their states are crazy for U21

Thank you! The standings has finalized and we would be playing Hong Kong U21, but regardless whether it was Hong Kong or Taiwan, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't make it. I hope to one day reach their heights. Haha.

My thought process going into this game was that it was a do or die game for Kazakhstan U21. They would definitely CT us, because like us, they're not beating Hong Kong U21. But they have the enthusiasm upper hand, because they probably played TIE all season long, while we just spent a CT against Saudi Arabia U21. So yea, it definitely was risky, although with how the game went, I wonder if it made any difference if we went TIE anyway. Anyway, post game report coming up next!

Loss vs Kazakhstan U21: 94-111
I've probably never celebrated a loss like this. Yea it would have been great if we won, but we lost by 17. That means we are through to the next round, with a +8 point difference over Kazakhstan U21! Yipee!!!!

Personal note to self, I'm never trusting isolation tactics again. They really failed me hard this season. If you were watching the game, you'd realize the game was more lopsided than the score suggested. We were down by almost 30 after the third. Man, how embarrassing was that. The worse thing was I didn't even know what went wrong. Our offense was going as intended, we were getting the ball to Goh Kwang Jia, who was our best offensive player. But he was missing almost everything. To make matters worse, he kept being guarded by a 8k salary player (with how well he shot, I'm pretty sure it's not all defense). Some ridiculous plays happened, like one of our best inside shot players missing a dunk (that's crazy alright, because you only miss dunks if your IS is not high enough). Our players were also missing a lot of open looks while our opponents were getting a lot of open looks (which they scored from).

Regardless, we made it, thanks to garbage time (ironic with how I hate garbage time but it finally benefitted me). We basically shaved the lead from 31 to 14 with a little over 3 minutes to go. That's when our opponents decided things were a bit too dangerous and put their starters back in. Thankfully, our boys kept the score close, preventing them from running away with the win.

Well, I can't think of a season where we could get any luckier, but we've finally ended our trophy drought! Hopefully this is the start to many more trophies to come!

That is simply amazing! What a feat! You brought another trophy home after 30 seasons... That's top level coaching!
Big congrats sir!

Thanks! I shall attribute it to luck being on our side. We'll probably be thrashed again on Monday, but I am satisfied with the trophy. Hopefully there are more to come. Hahaha. You've been doing great with the senior NT as well. Playoffs in your first consolation tournament. Keep up the great work!