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Today we are playing against Senegal, the team with the best roster this year. While preparing to this match I thought that it is not enough just a words to prove their straight and made some researches. Here is team comparison :

TOP10 salary:
Senegal = 128740
South Africa = 94151
TOP10 DMI:
Senegal = 1667700
South Africa = 900100

The situation is not so optimistic, but its ok, cause salary isnt very accurate index as skills themselves. As for DMI, we have really bad gameshape this week and only 1 bench player has 9GS. Senegal has a few key players in proficient GS so the DMI difference is quite big.
Lets move on to one of the best index for national team - match ratings calculations (BBStats).

AVERAGE BBSTATS
Senegal = 101.62
South Africa =98.27

MAX BBSTATS
Senegal = 107.88 vs Algeria
South Africa = 109.86 vs Egypt

Well, BBstats is really great index, because it shows how the team plays and game ratings include all information about players, tactics, enthusiasm, etc. This index doesn’t works for teams, cause the numbers will differ a lot during the season because of cup matches, transfers and so on. But it is great while evaluating NT straight.
So, the 3 point difference in average BBstats is like math variance and doesn’t play huge role for us now. Aslo, according to the data, Senegal played 2 normal games already that is our advantage.

Tactics:
We are playing Patient and 2-3 zone. 2-3 zone will help us to stop their SF-P-C players and provide more rebounds. We don’t have enough players with ID to stop them and Man-to-Man could lead to huge amount of 2nd chance points.
We play patient offence, because our best shooters are guards and Senegal has weak guards in bed GS, so I expect over 50% FG from Mandela, Toivo and Brocklehurst. As for forwards, they just need to grab rebounds.

Good luck us!

(29518) -8
The game was really weird. I watched the game from the start and i was shocked. We started 1-15 and the first made FG was on 9 minute. Then we managed to recover and even got a 1 point lead in the 2nd. All other quaters were very tight. 4 minutes before the end we had -2, but game engine decided that its time to shoot 3 points and nearly all shots were missed. Actually, the score -8 was made by FT, the real score had to be like -4 or smth. I dont feel like i made a mistake, the opponent was too good this time. The key to success was GameShape and too much turnovers. 2-3 zone worked great, we grabed many offencive rebs and actually managed to limit their main force. Our guards were stopped by 3-2 zone, but if we played inside offence we would lost like at least 30 points.
Senegal was lucky to win 2nd game in a row in a very close game. I will try to prepare better next time. This loss in not fatal, but we have to win Senegal in the 2nd group stage.
Peace out

We lost 2 matches against the strongest team this year. I just want to explain my thoughts and the reasons of defeats

Senegal has the best chances for gold and monster roster. They prepared well before match and had significantly better game shape. 3-2 zone and strong personal defenders with high value of ID havent left us any chances. I decided to play normal, because despite all our weaknesses, we had chance to win. The difference was just -2 and if i decided to use GDP we could even won.

Algeria lost just 1 point to Senegal on equal attitude and aslo had great GS vs us. I was just stunned on Friday when i saw training update. Brocklehurst, Mandela and Toivo, our main offencive force had 7 GS. Our forwards has 9 GS, so that was obvious choise to play Look inside. That tactic could provide the lowest loss. -23 is not what i expected to get, but that is the real power of our team at this moment of time.

Our last 3 games summaries:

(30101) +13 vs Nigeria
Tough opponent and 4th place candidate. We played 2 different halfs, 1st was ours, but we lost our advantage in th end. Brocklehurst hit 10, Cebekhului 19, while team leader Mandela enjoyed his best shooting night of the season with 39 thanks in large part to a stunning three-point shooting performance (6-11). The only problems were turnovers and poor FT%.

(30105) +71 vs Marocco
Onesided game vs outsider. The main hero of the night was Danny Brocklehurst who converted tripple-double - 24 pts, 11rebs, 10 assists (btw he assisted game buzzerbeater, which made his TD)

(30107) -3 vs Algeria
The last time we met they outscored us by 23 points. I decided to play another tactics, inside iso and actually it helped. They might have slightly better game shape, because one of our leaders Toivo constantly has unexceptable GS and could play much much better every game. Both teams played great defence and it was realy nailbitter in the end. We fought hard. With 9 minutes to go we were under by 12, but we fought back. We were down by 3 like last 1,5 minutes and could not made a single FG. As for Algeria, they missed 4 consecutive FT in the end. The game engine decided that the best shooter for the decisive 3pt is Cebekhului (atrocious jump range) and we lost. However, this loss is optimistic, as we can pla on the same level with Algeria and under better circumstances we can win next time.

nice summary. thx. ;)

(30365) -10 vs Senegal in semifinal. THE END

I really expected to face Algeria in semis and i was very diapointed when i saw Senegal. The gameshape before the game was equal, but they had better players and our key heroes: Mandela, Danny and Cebekhului was in 8GS. Before Algeria beated Senegal in group stage with LI,i thought that is is the best tactics vs them, as they play 3-2 zone vs us and stop our main force. The 2-3 zone defence may be not the best option vs Princeton, but i expected to win rebound and grab many offensive rebs as our shooting is veru poor and additional shots could solve that problem. AS a result, we grabbed 18OR (Senegal had just 3) and had+14 defensive rebs. I decided not to use GDP and i fell like i would never guess Princeton. I really think like i made all possible from myself to achieve the W, but Senegal is 2strong for us. The main reason is poor shooting. We have the best defence (the lowest points allowed on group stage) but our offence is nightmare. I would say that we have 3 options in offence: Mandela, Cebenkhului and Toivo. All others have unexeptable shooting stats as for this stage. i tried to motivate managers to train JS and IS but i was not so persuasive.

I set the goal to reach at least finals to avoid playing repechange games and consolidation tournament later. I failed iand i fell like my job was not good enough. I think any other manager could achieve the same result, cause we had just 2 trong rivals, which i cant win even a single time. I would like to apologize for results. I put muself E grade for the season.

PS: tomorrow i will post season stats, name team MVP and the most dedicated manager.

Despite the loss, it was a pretty good season.

Despite the loss, it was a pretty good season.

indeed

I am sorry that did not hold back words. i promissed to show stats much earlier, but i had to go to the army training camp and the only access was mobile phone.

Players stats

Top5 points:
1. Mandela - 233
2. Brocklehurst - 165
3. Cebenkhului - 138
4. Toivo - 107
5. Jacob - 92

Top5 rebounds:
1. Cebenkhului - 177
2. Jacob - 154
3. Malete - 131
4. Ngoma - 84
5. Brocklehurst - 65

Top5 assists:
1. Brocklehurst - 46
2. Toivo - 41
3. Mandela - 38
4. Jacob - 28
5. Nyagumbo - 23

Top5 steals:
1. Toivo - 25
2. Ngoma - 19
3. Brocklehurst - 16
4. Malete - 15
5. Mandela - 13

Top5 blocks:
1. Cebenkhului - 24
2. Malete - 17
3. Ngoma - 11
4. Jacob- 10
5. Nyoni - 9

I wont post TOs and fouls stats, because its not positive indexes.

Best results:
Points - 39 - Mandela
Rebounds - 21 - Cebenkhului
Assists - 10 - Brocklehurst
Steals - 5 - Brocklehurst
Blocks - 4 - Cebenkhului

Notable perfomances:
Brocklehurst - tripple-double (24p, 11r, 10a)
Mandela - double-double (18p, 10r)
Cebenkhului - 8 double-doubles
Malete - 2 double-doubles

Team results:
Best win: +71 vs Marocco (30105)
Best offence: 115 points vs Marocco (30105)
Best defence: 41 vs Egypt (30113)
Most team rebs: 73 vs Tounisia (29506)
Most team assists: 31 vs Tounisia (29506), vs Marocco (30105)
Most team steals: 12 vs Algeria (30107)
Most team blocks: 12 vs Egypt (29511)

Team MVP:
To my mind, Danny Brocklehurst performed the best as for his salary and my expectations. He is all-round trained player that helped team in all aspects of game. He missed only 1 team top5(blocks) which is not so important for his role.

The most dedicated manager:
Ebene5
The only awared local user who trained 2 players for u21. Without Mandela and Brocklehurst South Africa wont went so far. Thanks a lot, i hope you will keep your business and prepare more players for u21 and senior NTs.

Also, i want to say thanks to
- Kavin for training the best forward of u21 Cebenkhului. I am really glad that we found contact and Kavin even listened to my words and did the job well.
- 郭Sir for preparing the best defender of the team. Ngoma had both best ID and OD. Despite language barrier he tried to help the team as possible.
- anewil for training Ben Jacob. He made great jon but had to sell him due to club restructuring. Unlickily, the manager ignored me and did not made a single popp.
- negrocurry for Nonceba Nyagumbo, great shooter and key player for the next season. This guy went bot, but i think he desrve to be mentioned.
- Flood Malawi. Despite ignoring all my messages and unexceptable entrances he made great job. Thoibo Toivo is the best trained player last season and if not bad gamashape all season long, he would showed much better stats.
- all South Africa players for spending your time and making our teams stronger. Thanks gentlemans (or ladies).

Thats all. We got bronze, not what expected but we have to accept this result and move forward for new achievments.