BuzzerBeater Forums

Once again thanks to everyone for their congratulations. Particularly Morwood for first putting my name into the NT frame. Then Vecx for reintroducing the idea a few weeks ago.

Had a chance to see the team in action today, but of course, not much to learn from a scrimmage.

I'll be opening a couple of topics on the offsite. As Morwood and Vecx have done with the u21s I'll be looking for anything useful anyone might want to say. And like them I'll be making my own decisions after digesting everything.

I've gone through the fixtures in the group with a view to gauging when our opponents might want to use extra effort against us. This is probably the key to the season. Comments there would be especially welcome.

Congrats.

Forgot to vote again;( but im glad English manager won election .

Thanks. I'm glad too. ;)

Just thought I'd better mention this just in case anyone sees one of their players is no longer part of the National Team, I will be calling players up BEFORE the economy update. I'm aware of how much that would cost everyone.

However, as usual, week one has thrown up some, what you might call, interesting game shape problems. In addition to these expectedl problems, there's an extra one. Two NT players are on the transfer list, and will take a game shape hit before monday's games. Those players will unfortunately probably not make monday's team.

Finally, I will probably only be calling up 12 players over the weekend. As some of you know, I need to leave room on the roster to add players in later weeks, in case of emergency. This means some players will miss out. However, the door doesn't close on players not on the roster. They may still have a part to play in our season.

I think that's all for now. Thanks.

Gully

Just for you to know :
Money given for a player in NT is given if they played a game for the NT the past week.
Meaning that teams will receive on Monday 14th money for game played on Monday 7th.
Knowing this, you can wait for the very last moment to put them in the roster if you're willing to keep your roster secret to your opponent.

Just for you to know :
Money given for a player in NT is given if they played a game for the NT the past week.
Meaning that teams will receive on Monday 14th money for game played on Monday 7th.

Thanks. Of course, reading that, it seems perfectly obvious now.

Still, not my worst mistake of the week. That would be when I let the battery on my laptop run out in the middle of making notes on the squad. Lets hope I can keep the mistakes to those things that don't really matter.

Scotland may have sent proud Edward's army homeward tae think again, but Edward didn't have Alan Sharpling and Connor Marshall on his side.

Things started a little sloppily, turn overs, a lack of rebounding, and a lack of possessions. In fact we started each quarter quite slowly. Finished them well though, by the end of each quarter we looked for more fluent offensively.

The second quarter was key, when we built up our lead. Marshall and Sharpling looked unstoppable at times.

We were called for a lot of fouls, which isn't normal for most of these players, but is entirely normal for teams I send out, so I can only assume BB can hear me shouting for more fire.

Our inability to stop Harkus scoring is a worry going forward but overall a very pleasing display. Really everyone who played contributed in some way, be it steals, rebounds, assists etc.

In the other group games there were some very interesting results, with losses for Italy and Croatia. Actually we'll be top of the Group but its far too early to make any definite judgements about where we can actually end up.

I'm very pleased by the game of Marshall

Good job and good luck for the next

Thanks. I think any NT manager would be pleased to have Marshall. He can do everything.

In other news, we lost 27yo Art Smedley to enforced retirement today. I could perhaps have been more effusive in my ad, but I feel its important to be honest about these things, and apparently no one wanted him at that salary.

Also retiring is England legend Lawrence Mackenzie. We all know he did a fantastic job over the last few seasons for England. He also won an EBBL Championships with Moomins. I know him well from when he single handedly knocked me out of the play offs in division 2, mostly in one amazing quarter.

shame to see a legend go... but even legends become old and brittle...

Going to have to make this quick, because I've now twice lost my post. Long story. None of it interesting.

ENGLAND 158 ALBANIA 103

Although we led early, we had a lot of foul problems. 9 in the first 6 minutes, 11 in the first quarter. Second quarter both teams were almost scoring at will. Although this was indicative of FCP, I initially thought not, based on the fact that we didn't turn the ball over in the first quarter.

Albania tired in the third quarter, which is really when we starter running up the score.

Sharpling (again), Gascoigne (in his first NT game of the season), and Andrews scored more than 20 pts, Sharpling also contributed 10 assists, and Holm (also in his first NT game of the season), and Simpson added 15, and 13 rebounds respectively.

Only making 8 turnovers against a FCP I feel is also noteworthy. All in all a decent performance which keeps us top of the group. Of course we've had the easier fixtures so far, and from next week it will be much more of a test.

In the other games Italy beat Scotland, Croatia beat Germany despite losing two starters, and Belarus went against rankings for the second week in a row by beating Israel.

This leaves us still topping the group after two games, but really that's where we ought to be. Its going to get more difficult from now on. Starting with Belarus next week. The only other unbeaten team, I feel we'll know a lot more after playing them where we stand. They've beaten two good teams already, two teams higher ranked than us, and its probably fair to say they're favourites to win next week.

Still, lets enjoy being top of the group for now. We're there for at least the next seven days.