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Season 15 started out on a high note, with a very important 98-96 win over Taiwan. This is a game that could have gone either way, but we got the bounces, and Glenn Richards came up with the key basket and defensive stop in the final seconds. Next week, the action continues against Ghana, and it's great to start off the new season with a victory. :)

It's a few days past the huge 98-96 win over Taiwan and all of Canada is still a buzz. With the crafty Taiwan manager not revealing there roster until the final hours before tipoff Canadian scouts weren't able to get any real insight about the team before the game. At gametime the roster and starters were revealed and it seemed obvious that Taiwan would be playing the same type of Look Inside offense as Team Canada. Taiwan had 3 listed Centers take the court at tipoff time.

Glenn Richards had the toughest matchup versus the 7'2", 143k salary, Cai Wing Chun. It was a battle inside all game. Richards was quite effective on offense where his 10-17 shooting led to 21 points, which led all of Canada. While he only had 5 total rebounds for the entire game he boxed Chun out and off of the glass. Taiwan only produced 6 ORs and 35 total, compared to Canada's 13 ORs and 51 total rebounds. He also recorded his final 2 points with 5 seconds to go, off a pass from Germain Demers, that he dunked right in the grill of Chun. Chun recieved the ball in the final seconds to try to send the game into overtime. G. Rich was all over him and forced him to clank his inside shot off the iron.

Germain Demers was able to pickup a double double. His 17 point 17 rebound game was a true gem. He had 6 big time dunks off a few passes and some he just did all himself. His final few points and rebounds coming during the last few minutes of the game were just huge and helped Canada hold on for the win.

Govardhan Mohan was just a blur during the game. Matched up against PG Wang Poh Fan, Mohan sometimes just took the entire offense in his own hands when things seemed stale. Mohan was able to get to the rim a number of times and finished with some sweet layups and a dunk. He recorded all of his 15 points in the first 3 quarters. He finished with 7 assists with only 1 turnover.

Taiwan had 3 listed Centers take the court at tipoff time. As the players exchanged hand shakes David Chretien seemed a bit confused as who his defensive assignment would be. Coming up towards him was Center Ding Yiu Wing. Listed at 6'10", the all-time great at a 70k salary, Ding Yiu Wing came up to the 6'2" Chretien looking down smiling at him and even chuckling with his other teammates. You could see DC's expression change from concern to agitation and possibly even disdain. The first quarter started with Ding Yiu Wing throwing down a dunk on DC. He then tried an inside shot against DC which missed. A couple of minutes later Ding Yiu Wing pulls up for a jump shot just outside the free throw line. DC ran up and jumped, way up, to contest the shot. With all of DC's forward momentum going right into contesting the jump shot, his elbow actually "grazed" Wing's chin, sending the big man to the floor. The refs called it a clean foul though. Apparently Wing hadn't bothered to start the game with his mouth piece. He lost a chicklit and the rest of the minutes in the game because of it. He won't be smiling anytime soon.

David Chretien's intensity seemed to energize the entire team. He was matched up against SG L. Yuh Sheng for the remainder of his minutes and fouled him rather than allowing any easy buckets. He had 3 fouls in the first quarter and had 5 fouls with 7 minutes to go in the first half. Inspite of this he didn't foul out until 8 minutes left in the game. L. Yuh Sheng shot 7-14 from the free throw line. DC finished with 9 points, 3 rebounds and 4 assists.



Last edited by Mr. Burns at 1/20/2011 4:51:56 PM

Herman Kearns had a quite interesting game. His 12 rebounds were the second highest for any Canadian player. Kearns was quoted as saying "G. Rich had a real tough assignment. Instead of going for the rebounds himself, he would box his man out and just try to tip the ball over to Demers or me. He even just allowed some balls to drop to the court rather than go for them himself. I'd just scoot underneath all those big guys and pick the rebound. It just shows what kind of teammate G. Rich is." Kearns finished with 10 points, 12 rebs and 4 assists.

Of all of the players off of the bench Booker Wilbur had the biggest impact. His 12 points and 7 rebounds in 16 minutes was very crucial. G. Demers was probably the player of the game but when Wilbur would fill in for him, there would hardly be any kind of drop off. His 13.5 rating was the highest off the bench. Ulric Senneville did a nice job at SF when Chretien fouled out. He played the final 8 minutes of the game and went 1-4 FG's in the final 3 minutes. The one shot he did hit though was a biggy. Overall the bench provided a nice spark on offense. They shot for 50% and scored 26 points.

This win was the closest game in the first week of any of the U21 games. I'll hopefully be able to watch the Ghana game live and I hope it won't take as long to write it up. Also, if you own any player on the team and would like to make a player quote please send me them via BB-Mail. I'll try to add them to the write up or maybe in another segment.

Mr. Burns

Last edited by Mr. Burns at 1/20/2011 10:32:07 PM

Great write up Mr. Burns!! The NT could use some of these to you know?? :)

The Canadian U21 managed to pick up a 93-63 win over Ghana today. Belgium also beat Taiwan today, which means that while we are up to 2-0, Belgium is also 2-0. We play Belgium next week, and the winner will move on to the world championships. I'm expecting a great game, and it should be a lot of fun. :)

Ya, that's right Mogul. It's a "Winner Advances" game to the World Championships. My game report will be posted here when I can.

Man, i hope next year my big can make it to the u21 squad. i think he missed out cuz of his less than impressive blocking

http://www.buzzerbeater.com/player/16349796/overview.aspx - Romeo Senneville (MVP 20 YR)

Why smaller effort?:(

he's right that game would have led us to the world's, i dont understand that decision

We normaled and Belgium Ct'd. If we would've CT'd we would have gone into the worlds with absolutely no chance at advancing into the second round of the worlds. If we won with a normal we wouldve had a legitimate shot at advancing to the 2nd round. Belgium CT'ing is weird to me now they wil almost surely be knocked out in the first round and play scrimmages for the rest of the season.

Very tough loss today against Belgium. We were winning for pretty much the entire game, but things fell apart in the final minute or so.

The enthusiasm decision was a tough one. We ended up using normal, and Belgium crunched us. Using a crunch at this stage has a cost, as it results in going to world's with an enthusiasm disadvantage. The teams that already qualified for world's start with 5 enthusiasm, and it isn't ideal to put ourselves in a situation where we start with only 3 or 4 enthusiasm. The idea was to go for a win with a normal, and while we came very close, it didn't work out. Perhaps we should have crunched and taken the enthusiasm hit, but we tried to avoid that, and Belgium ended up taking advantage.

The rest of the season, we will be playing the consolation round. The highest finishing team from the Americas will host the continental qualifiers next season. There is a lot of competition for us this season, as all the teams from the Americas lost in the repechage just now; Brasil, Chile, and Uruguay are joining us. We all have default 0-2 records (due to playing in the repechage). Some other good teams, like Peru, have a head start on us, and are 2-0 at the moment.

The schedule has been set, and ours is fairly difficult, with three tough road games (Israel, Hong Kong, and Latvia). We also play three home games (Bosnia, Iran, Al Jazair). We likely need at least 5 wins to stay in the hunt for home court advantage, and with the schedule we have, it won't be easy.

Next week, we get started with a home game against Bosnia i Hecegovina, which will be played at 7:00 PM EST.