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I'm sure anything posted here will be useful to whoever takes over, and of course to Woody, or whoever follows him. And I'm likely to post anything concrete once its clear how much has changed. If it is clear. It might even be clearer after the draft.

I'm not likely to leave the game soon. Though I'd certainly like to post less than I have this season.

Not much happened yesterday. The team ranked 22 in the world came to our house, made extra effort, attempted to predict our tactics, presumably with the expectation of victory, and went home with their tail between their legs.

I choose the tactics first, then the lineup which best fits, (if there's not a lineup to fit, I use a different tactic) and consequently our ratings may lead opponents to underestimate us. Good. I hope it continues.

Yesterday was our best performance of the season. The game went almost perfectly from our point of view, everything I expected pretty much was what happened, which isn't always the case. Simply put, we performed better than Finland in almost every area of the game.

Offensively only Lewis didn't shoot well, but he was in for his passing and his 8 assists meant he did his job. Corral and Duffie dominated the boards, 13 ORs between them is an excellent effort, and Lewis again with 3 steals and De Simone with 3 blocks contributed to 8 team steals and 8 blocks.

One of the most important stats to me, often overlooked is turnovers. At this level of the game getting through a whole game and comitting only 3 turnovers is almost unbelievable. And not a single player had 2.

So, our best performance of the season, our best ratings and we move on to 7-0 with a very nice points difference and we've qualified comfortably.

77% approval rating. Someone's having a laugh.

In my DIII Utopia draft pool I've also done a Group Demo. 10 of the 19 are 5 ball, 3 4 ball.
Of the 5 ballers, the 3 18 yr olds I've interviewed are 5/3, 5/3, 5/2.

So definite trend towards better starting skills.

I have to say, the game in Bosnia didn't go as I expected. My tactics for today didn't work, my prediction was wrong, and on top of that, our opponents made more effort than I expected.

I was actually expecting all season that this would be a game we would likely lose, I actually thought we'd finish with a 6-2 record so we exceeded that. The cheeky patient with a shooter at C was in order to maximise our chance, I didn't feel playing straight would be effective, but it didn't work as well as last season. Probably Bosnia were just a little too good. The main reason for the defeat is the extra effort they put in at home. I didn't want to try as hard as they did because, as I've made clear, I wasn't confident it was worth it. They however we worried we would, and felt they had to match us.

Hard to pick out any players that did well. I don't think my tactics let any of them shine today.

We'll at least have a home game next week. After that its less likely, and while I don't see us going too far in the tournament, home advantage is hard to overcome, we'll be doing our best.

Time as the qualifying stage to say that game shape has been mostly excellent all season. I've always been able to put 12 players on court who were in good shape and that's always welcome. Well done everyone.

We finished 14th. Not bad. Not great. That means a home game next monday. Romania, recent victors over the mighty Czech Republic will be the visitors. After that, should we both proceed, we'll have a rematch of yesterday's game against Bosnia & Herzogovina.

Nice!

Forgot to post about our win over Romania. Apologies. They were the only team who tried. We won. Presumably their effort the previous week to defeat the Czechs was too much for them. We dominated statistically but found it difficult to pull away as I'd have liked but really the result was never in doubt.

That sets us up for another trip to Bosnia & Herzogovina. Two weeks ago we went there with a funky lineup (SG at C) and came home disappointed. They're massive favourites for tomorrow's game; it's very difficult at this stage to upset a favourite on the road and so tomorrow is possibly (likely if you're a bookmaker) my last competitive game as U21 coach.

Two weeks ago Bosnia & Herzogovina made more effort than we did and beat us quite comfortably. They also look in good shape and will be very confident of victory. There are some small points in our favour. Taking it easy two weeks ago, and again last week, means we are as high in enth as we could reasonably expect to be at this stage, and B & H used more than we did two weeks ago and so will be slightly lower. They're at home but as 3 seed, could (should) be eyeing a potential away game in Poland in the future, and realistically they should want to take it easy against us.

They're at home but as 3 seed, could (should) be eyeing a potential away game in Poland in the future, and realistically they should want to take it easy against us.

Well, they weren't fooled. They probably didn't read that but it was worth a try.

No crunch, because as lemon eloquently posted elsewhere, it ends your chances of progressing and its too early to commit suicide with your season, so I'd rather take the risk and normal.

Inside box and one is an unusual choice at representative level, as pointed out to me by the opposition, but the gamble was necessary as I felt they'd attack us inside and we needed as many players with inside defence as possible, and they were best arranged in a box. I didn't, and still don't think we'd have won playing man to man so I don't feel it was a mistake.

To be brutally honest, I just feel they had better players than us and whatever we did was not going to be enough.

Sad that my u21 career ends with a defeat but that's how most NT and u21 jobs end. Good luck to whoever takes over.

Thanks for reading and thanks for voting for me 6 months ago.

Hey mate, I've read everything so far, but I was not ready to take a risk of tie versus CT, like Poland or Italy did.

Anyway, it was a pleasure playing against you. You have very specific, unusual and unpredictable style, and it was very tough for me to predict the outcome, that's why I didn't want to take the risk and play tie in both of our games.
This generation of BiH players is called "golden generation", project I've started 4 seasons ago. That's why we are stronger than usual.
This is also my last season as U21 coach, 6 seasons are very long time.
Wish me luck in the rest of consolation tournament.

Best regards,
Kyve.

Good luck to BiH, top seeded team left now, I hope you can win the tournament. More so after your post.

Not the way you wanted to go out Gully, but it's been a great run and you've done an outstanding job.