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Montenegro 87-151 England
As mentioned last week, this game was all about building our PD as much as we could, in case it came down to those sorts of margins at the end of the group.

Montenegro have deployed the same tactics for almost two seasons now, so a double GDP guess of PtB was an obvious choice, along with our selection of RnG as an offence with Kemp and Duguid in good shape. +64 is a nice PD to gain against our weakest opponents, but with Montenegro likely to normal every other game this season, the difference in enthusiasm between them and our direct opponents will be bigger, meaning the PD could also go that way. Nine of twelves players scored in double digits, with Duguid top-scoring with 25 points. Buchan missed only one shot all game, shooting 10/11 adding 22 points.

Next week we face our neighbours across the Channel, Ireland. They picked up a nice win against Norway yesterday, but it was at the expense of enthusiasm using CT so it should be another easy win and a chance to boost our PD. Bosnia used more effort to beat Serbia in a game which further widens the interest of how this group will develop, as the latter will face hosts Czechia next week and another loss would make put a serious dent into their qualification hopes.

In the other groups, Spain beat Germany which almost seals their qualification, whilst Israel kept their Championship hopes alive with a win against Finland, whilst Portugal defeated Hungary in the same group to make Pool-C one to keep an eye on.

England 129-103 Ireland
The score line doesn't tell the entire story of this game, as it looks to be a comfortable win, but it was anything but. Going into the last five minutes of the final quarter, Ireland were level with us and threatening to totally derail our season and leaving me sweating. A 29-5 run put us out of sight and allowed us to move on and forget the game pretty quickly.

With Ireland using CT vs Norway last week, I expected this game to be a foregone conclusion, given the enthusiasm advantage and the strength of our players. The ratings and PP100 maybe show that we were robbed of an easier win and an opportunity to sure up our PD, just in case it did come down to that, which is frustrating. Duguid, Kemp and Kanjilal continued their impressive starts with to the season.

Next week is our biggest game of the season yet as we play Bosnia. We do have an enthusiasm advantage due to their use of more enthusiasm vs Serbia two game weeks ago, but their ratings clearly show they are a great team and are a lot better than their ranking suggests. A loss and our campaign is virtually over, so it is a must win game. Serbia's campaign is almost certainly over now as they lost a crunch game to Czechia, who are all but qualified.

In other groups, Finland egded past Portugal to leave Pool-C open and Bulgaria continued their perfect start beating Slovenia who are eliminated.

Bosnia 111-118 England
A triumphant win as we defeated Bosnia to put ourselves in pole position to qualify for the second round. Our destiny is now in our own hands, but we have three tough games left so it's still all to play for.

Analysing which way Bosnia would go was difficult. With several key players on their side in great shape, they had the option to attack in any way, but I always felt they would opt to go balanced or outside, due to the game shape of our guards, and use one of the Iso offences or Motion, hence my normal GDP guess, which proved to be incorrect. Offensively we didn't have many options with several key players low on game shape. I did expect an Outside Box from Bosnia and with their SB-bigs, Sare and Hercegovac, being in low game shape, I felt that was the best way to attack them. We managed to cause them serious issues inside with Harris, Albrighton and Kanjilal all scoring efficiently and the Bosnian bigs in foul trouble. I do think we were slightly fortunate to win this one, with the FT differential being so big and with how few turnovers we had, but the ratings and +/- suggest we were the better side.

Next week we face Norway who gave today's opponents Bosnia a tough game, so I expect the same for us next week.

In the other groups, there were some interesting results as Spain edged out Belgium to take control of Pool-E. Portugal lost to Slovakia, making the game against Israel next week crucial and Moldova pulled off a shock win against Russia.