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After a quite disappointing Asia championship where U21 Malaysia only managed to get one win in the second round, the whole country is looking for a better season. The loss of the incredible Steve 'Hulk' Gabriel, who already joined the NT, will force the team to change the play book. However, having 5 returning players will help a lot. They already played at this level and have the required experience, the 5 of them will lead the way to a season with higher hopes.

To prepare the coming season, it was decided that the first friendly game will be against our neighbours: Singapore. They took this game very seriously and put their best lineup but gave everyone a fair amount of playing time. Malaysia's plan was to test new players which made us not having the best team possible.
After an incredible first quarter where young daring players Malaysian players scored 37 points, it became more difficult. The Malaysian's defence was not good enough and Singapore scored about 30 points in all quarters. Despite the weak defence, Malaysia kept close and was even ahead in the last quarter but Singapore finished with a frenzy offence which made them win by an unfair 17-point margin.

Malaysian MVP: Michel Ginap was almost unstoppable, a doing it all kind of player who was only 3 assists short from a triple-double for his first NT game! Some comparisons with LeBron James were made and his statistics only showed how true these comparisons are: 29pts, 10rbs and 7assts. Now you know!

Our next game will be the traditional yearly game against Malaysia NT, nothing is expected from this game but having fun with the older guys... and Steve 'Hulk' Gabriel.

I still can draw some conclusions, we have a strange U21 NT and I believe we could surprise a few teams.

Edwin is one of the two players I can see in the NT in a few seasons. His potential is huge and he reminds me of Ethan Gion in some ways. Breaking the 100 TSP milestone seems very difficult but he will come close to it (either below or above). Our starting guards are pretty good, I wouldn't have dreamed of better players, they are just right where they should be.

Thank you for your encouragements, I hope the U21 NT will make Malaysia proud this season.

Thank you! I'm sorry you didn't get to beat the surprising Australia despite our support. I guess Malaysian fans were not loud enough...

You seem to have a nice looking team with some depth and not only inside. I wish your team can do as well as the Philippines did during the world 2 months ago, with a bit of luck, they would have won 2 more games to get out of the group stage. As for us, we have a great starting 5 (considering our country's size) but we lack a bit of depth. We are all going to proudly represent Asia.

A win is a win

Norway is a good team despite its bad world rank (#60 before the game) and all young Malaysian players had this in mind when starting the game.

The first half went as planned, Malaysia managed to slowly make a small difference and ending the 2 first quarters with a 7-point margin. All this despite having our starting center, Chen Guangjie, in foul trouble.

Coming back from the locker room, Norway showed a better side of themselves, Malaysia struggled to follow the rhythm and only managed to save a single point advantage. The last quarter sounded promising and the ending was! With less than 30 seconds to go, Ricky George managed to dunk to give a 3-point advantage to Malaysia. On the following offense, Svein Vestli made a 3 pointer to tie the game. Last ball fell off in Huang Chengkang who went inside but his shoot fell short and the game went in overtime.

In overtime, Huang Chengkang took his responsibilities once more and managed to score the last basket of the game to give Malaysia the so desired 92-93. Norway had 3 opportunities to win the game after 2 missed free throws and 2 missed jump shoots, Malaysia celebrated the first win of their promising season.

It took our boys an overtime to get a lucky win against a good looking team but there are a few things which are to be improved, the free throws could have cost us the game. A win is a win and this one is putting us in good position before an easy game against the weak Pakistan.

Last edited by Nico4nicolas at 10/27/2014 1:44:01 PM

A disappointing no show

Our young Malaysian players were expecting to face the weak Pakistan to imitate what the NT did earlier today but it was a no show, Pakistan still doesn't have a team. While the Malaysian players use that free time to visit the country, I would like to seize this opportunity to talk about the recent history.

Flashback...

Season 27 Consolation Tournament, after a difficult start with 3 losses, the Malaysia U21 NT went on a winning with 5 straight wins to finish #30 and qualify for tournament bracket. Unfortunately, they fell short against the strong Lithuania which lost in semi-finals against the future winner, Serbia. In that team, there was already Ilayaraja Vikesh who is now playing his second consolation tournament! It shows the player's quality! Another member of that team was Steve Gabriel, current member of Malaysia NT.

Season 25 Consolation Tournament, the team lead by Xiao Daocheng and Jackson Victor, two current members of the Malaysia NT went on for a record breaking performance with only one loss against the strong Australia. Finishing #15, they drew many hopes against the matching Swiss team. However, despite a late run, Malaysia lost in a heart-breaking finish, with 2 points less than Switzerland, Malaysian's hopes died. To this day, it is the best performance of any U21 Malaysia NT.

The only other qualification was during Season 9 when Malaysia U21 NT finished #19. The recent successes in U21 competitions show a real improvement from a further past. This Season 29 expects to continue the improvement as high as it is possible to hope.

Hidup Malaysia!