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3. The game, lineup, tactics, effort, GDP, any defensive switches
a) what can we play -- rng, ptb, pat, motion (rng and motion less so because i believe their guards have great OD)
b) ruled out -- li, lp, isos, base, princeton (we will lose the inside battle for li or lp, i don't have a good feeling about the other 3
c) what effort they will probably use -- it will be close, so normal, don't see them crunching just to win 1 game

So it comes down to:
a) patient or push the ball
b) normal effort as we want to definitely win the game, it's a sure loss tie vs their nor, and if we crunch we won't be able to compete in next game too and give up on somehow outlasting the usa for home court in americas tourney

I choose patient over ptb because:
a) overall I think they are stronger, with HCA and DMI on their side -- if effort is even we need help to win
b) the biggest chance we have to score is at SF -- if I use our SF in SF slot, the SG will hoist most shots, and I don't like that matchup as I think their guards have great OD
c) so, knowing they have a PF at SF, they have 2 guards and 3 bigs
d) lets use 2 guards and 3 bigs with the SG on offense at SF, SF on offense at SG (someone with OK JS, JR, HA, PA) and hope our SG at SF spot goes for 50+ points

Deciding on our lineup:
a) SG with best combo of GS, DMI, JS, JR, DR, IS for patient = Koszakov
b) our PF and C were givens most weeks

PG x x x
SG x x x
SF Koszakov x x
PF Curley x x
C Mughal x x

If we want to win, our backup SG at SF also needs to put up points for the 12-16 minutes he'll be on the court. With Teschow at GS7 and ruled out, the next best option to score there is Pavliuk. This means pulling him out of normal PG duties, but good thing Westbury is GS9 and with highest OD on the team so slow opponents down, and even PA with Pavliuk, it won't hurt our flow at all.

PG Westbury x x
SG x x x
SF Koszakov Pavliuk x
PF Curley x x
C Mughal x x

This leaves one starter, our SF at SG. Grimes beats Avila out on GS, DMI, JS, and JR, so on offense at SG it makes sense to start Grimes.

But wait, playing them at SG means not being able to use them in the normal 3 position big man starter-backup-reserve rotation I like to use. And Ringenier with his awesome secondaries and team high TSP even beats out Grimes. At SG on offense only I go with Ringenier, bumping Avila down to 3rd spot and using him in the big man rotation. Their bigs look formidable, so rather than a-b-c at PF and d-e-f at C I want to use Curley and Mughal in 2 slots (a-b-a) and (d-e-d).

I wanted to switch Curley onto their C who is the bigger scorer, as Curley beats Mughal by 1 on ID. So I'll match up Avila with Mughal to defend at PF. Cockayne comes in as the other big backup. The lineup is starting to really take shape.

PG Westbury x x
SG Ringenier Grimes Avila (SF on D)
SF Koszakov Pavliuk x (SG on D)
PF Curley Cockayne Curley (C on D)
C Mughal Avila Mughal (PF on D)

Strachan is a real step down from Westbury at PG, and with Pavliuk just backing up SG at SF, I really want to get him more minutes. Pav into backup PG as well.

PG Westbury Pavliuk Strachan
SG Ringenier Grimes Avila (SF on D)
SF Koszakov Pavliuk x (SG on D)
PF Curley Cockayne Curley (C on D)
C Mughal Avila Mughal (PF on D)

Busch who had been on the team all year as a 20 year old unfortunately wouldn't be a fantastic patient option, even as the 3rd SG at SF. I call up Auger (JS 15 JR 12) as the reserve. I also like the OD combo of Westbury and Pavliuk at PG to defend the opponent's SG rather than PG, so I make that switch too.

PG Westbury Pavliuk Strachan (SG on D)
SG Ringenier Grimes Avila (SF on D)
SF Koszakov Pavliuk Auger (PG on D)
PF Curley Cockayne Curley (C on D)
C Mughal Avila Mughal (PF on D)

Last edited by U21 CAN Cletus at 1/18/2016 4:03:39 PM

That was pretty much it. Double checked everything Sunday night before the Monday afternoon game. Checked the "make this the default lineup" box just in case there was any lineup problem like at the season's start. Not with our team but with others. I did this all season.

How the game went!
The bastards crunched. F%#@

Did guess inside correctly. Got 4 out of their 5 starters guessed correctly.

Along with HCA, and even with a GDP guess correct, I knew it would be a miracle to win this one. I didn't guess LI because I knew from previous games their guards were not big LI point contributors AT ALL. So they might have went LP. I didn't want to nullify the FOR SURE inside guess with an incorrect pace guess.

1st quarter -- Koszakov had a massive quarter, 7/9 shooting, 0/1 3s tho. 16 points! 10 for Pav backing up! A 28-20 lead! 7 assisted baskets! No foul trouble, 3 total by 3 different players. Czech points were spread out a little more than anticipated, 4-4-3-2-2 for starters. OMG could all that game planning work?

2nd quarter -- Koszakov cools off going 1/6 and we score half as many points as the first. Ouch. 5 more assists and only 1 more foul so we're still looking good. 3 turnovers as a team at half is outstanding. And with 6/7 free throws we're not giving any easy points. SF Lapka for them has 4 fouls already. 13 assists for them is troubling. Beast C Vesely is only 4/9. Have a chance.

3rd quarter -- Tight quarter that ends 20-19 for Czech. So we are just down 1. Koszakov up to 11/23 for 29 points. Just 1/5 from downtown is not what I was hoping for though. Curley shooting 1/6 and Mughal 0/5 semi-confirms we were good not going inside offense. 5 turnovers in the quarter hurt. We are also getting out offensive rebounded 18-4. EIGHTEEN TO FOUR. And we're down just 1. Hold on, onto the 4th.

4th quarter -- With 4 minutes left we were down 9. With 40 seconds left we were down 4. Sadly, that's as close as we got, missing threes while fouling and giving up free throws at the other end and losing by 9 at the horn.

How were we close?
a) 38 from Koszakov and 21 from Pavliuk in 53 minutes between them (I had hoped to get 50 points from SF slot, I haven't checked how many from Pav were at PG instead
b) 10/13 free throws, good % but low amount
c) 15 turnovers isn't bad although 12 came in 2nd half
d) out-blocked them 7-6
e) held them to 32/82 (39% shooting) to our 31/77 (40%)
f) held their PF and C to 12/30 shooting

How we lost?
a) they crunched at home (and needed to)
b) they out rebounded us 54-38 (21-8 on offense)
c) they got 35 foul shots to our 13
d) ID on our guards wasn't high enough and their PG went 8/16 for 18 points, which really killed us (SG only went 1/7 for 4 points)

Feel free to comment, question, praise, second guess anything I've done here. Sorry if my notes weren't complete or if I was rambling or if all the text is hard to read/understand/etc. I would be glad to give more depth on anything here or U21 or BB related at all. Thanks to all managers of U21 players this year and for future seasons for contributing. Let's keep up the upward trend!

Thanks for reading.

Last edited by U21 CAN Cletus at 1/18/2016 4:49:48 PM

Impressive job, congrats!

If you read my posts about the game, it was in order to make sure the GE gave most of the patient shots to our SG who was playing at SF against their PF at SF.

Ring has enough JS/JR to shoot occasionally from the SG if he gets the ball late in shot clock, but not enough to hold the ball in most possessions. And enough passing to keep the ball going to the SF and not get stuck with it or turn it over.

All 5 offensive spots were switched for different defensive assignments, so he didn't guard the other SG. The only thing that hurt us was their PG had his best LI offense game of the year which I didn't think possible.

Last edited by U21 CAN Cletus at 1/19/2016 5:09:16 PM

Scouting of 18-20 year olds will begin tonight starting with age 20!

U20 1 enthusiasm games will begin Monday with different players rotating in.

So nice of Chile to use 21 year olds in a U20 scrim.

NTScout-ed all new 18 and 19 year olds. Will post data tomorrow and start contacting managers of top picks right away! Make use of Thur scrimmage and Fri training for them!!!