BuzzerBeater Forums

Not sure I trust an Italian guy named Croissant applying for Australia U21 coach.

Best of luck to you both

Also in whitewinds defense I'd like to add that our player base has dwindled significantly in the past 20-30 seasons, which means less access to potential draftees and/or less managers to produce better quality players.

Last edited by Solesky at 01/11/2022 23:58:03

Popovich’s record hasn’t been outstanding these past seasons, yet the only reason he’ll be replaced is if he retires =)

No one even bothers running against whitewind these days because we're all agreed that the job is theirs until they decide to step down.

The good news is that our user base is creeping back up (BB is finally growing again as a whole) and I'm planning to make my 2nd team a place to train U21 players at, though it'll still be a few seasons before I've built up everything you need these days to be a training team (gym, training Court, and enough extra money for regular and youth trainer).

Well that gives me motivation to stay on atleast another 10 seasons, if you'll still have me of course!

Technically I was born in Australia 😜 and technically Croissant is the name of my team not my name ahah
Also ask Lithuania if you can trust me (312970.2)

Thank you

Absolutely, I'm not saying that he is the sole reason for your poor result, however i think that recently you had a better roster than what the results say

True... but Popovic won 5 NBA Championships and got something like 22 consecutive Playoff appearances no matter the roster, I'm pretty sure you can't compare the two 😉 But that's just my personal opinion

But if you rather not change your coach cause you love him, I get it

If that's the case I'll just step down, no point in running if you're not open to change

I mean, 4-5 seasons and you can have excellent u21 players, gym and training court aren't necessary for a good u21 player, it's a waste of money that would be better of building a good arena or investing it in a better coach/players

Last edited by SpongeboNG [ITA] at 01/12/2022 06:06:44

Hey Whitewind and SpongeboNG,

I'm still a bit of a newish player and had some questions with what you would do to increase community engagement.

1. What are some things you would do to make the Australia forum more active?

2. How would you help keep new players in the game and not go inactive before their first season is over?

3. Hypothetically. Say we were to have a meeting with all the Australian managers. What food item would you bring to share with everyone?

Best of luck to both

Hey Kegdrinker,

1. In Australia we have set up the offsite forum https://buzzerbeateraustrali.freeforums.net/ to give Australian managers the opportunity to get a big sneak peek into both the u21 and the NT. Deano (current NT coach) and myself update players skills on there as much as we can to give managers a chance to compare players and have their say on both teams. There is also a section i have added which has a record of all our previous best players in every position, to try and educate our managers on what a player of each position could strive to look like. Then there is a weekly chat about upcoming games, scouting, future plans, and roster changes. This is for the keen manager who wants to be apart of the NT and know as much as we do about the team.

In terms of addressing engagement, ive noticed managers pretty much come and go in u21 as their players are selected, and im ok with that. I try and bbmail all managers with personalised messages to suit their player and situation. There is certainly a level of engagement in the program that is not seen in the public eye, where communication between myself and the managers of the current or prospective players are in contact with training plans or advice on gameshape/player builds. If a manager does reply, it usually sparks conversation with more questions about the game deeper than the specific player and im happy to pass on any experience i know of the game to help. The more a manager is open to wanting more info and help in the game, the more time i will spend with them. It is hard because not everyone wants to be coached in the game, some want to work it out for themselves while others are seeking as much info as you can give, so getting that right for each manager requires attention.

Not to say it cant get more active though and it is something I have called out for in each of my 14 speeches is the offer for assistants/scouts/media journalists, or whatever flair you can bring to the team. So i try and keep engagement of the u21 with writeups and updates of the season to the whole of the community so the average manager can check in from time to time to follow our journey.

In every season since i started in season 28 ive also kept an accurate MVP season count for managers as an extra to increase current players managers to join in the season. The list is available on the u21 team page https://www.buzzerbeater.com/country/17/jnt/overview.aspx. This idea has been grabbed by several other NT managers that have contacted me saying how they like it and would like to adapt it to their nation. The idea of an mvp is nothing new, but the time to sit down each week and work through a box score and keep a season count is something i can say i've done now for the entire 28 seasons. This has been something i beleieve has captured managers to follow the team, once again possibly not in a way youd see them active, but following the team. Ive had several bbmails in the past questioning an mvp vote after a game or two, which is a telling sign that people are following it!

2. Ive not kept a record of the new managers that have contacted me on how to get their team started or get training set up in the game, but it seems to be a common place for new managers to bbmail the u21 coach for help. Once again this communication is not seen to other managers, but is a regular occurrence. Im doing all i can checking through teams that are asking for advice and dealing with each individual situation depending on their money and players. But as a brief overview its usually setting up with a good trainer and aussie trainees if they can to hook them into what hooked me- getting a player training and developing as quickly and efficiently as they can. The simple answer to this question is by talking to them- communication. showing that no question is silly and that im available for them to keep firing question after question as they go and trying to answer quickly so they can adjust. These people are the future of our nations success so im happy to spend as much time with them as they are asking for.

For the more experienced manager (and the ones that will currently help our nation rise in world ranking) ive tried my hardest to help with more advanced levels of training, and in particular rapid training to produce the best 21yr old we can. Gotta tread lightly on advice as we have some really experienced managers and the advice id offer to an ABBL manager is quite different to one just starting out Ive set up a discussion on how to do this in the offsite forum and set up a template for how other nations are achieving this. The results of our improvements are evident too, with our highest tsp u21 players being trained in the last 5 seasons.:

Wally Chick broke the record for highest PG by 9 points- previously held by Epic Garmston. 9 extra pops in a 21yr old is HUGE!
Walter Densi in the following season broke our highest ever tsp as a SG, once again smashing it by 7 pops!

Tori Cull and Lori Feaster are our best ever SFs and Feaster was trained last season, Cull in the last 5

At PF results in the past have exceeded our current results, with Dewen and McFlynn our strongest TSP PFs.
At C Meehan being our highest ever tsp was trained 3 seasons ago and is our up and coming big man in the NT.

Now you dont necessarily need to know these things, the point here is, as current u21 coach im taking improvement seriously by keeping track of these trends and doing what i can to improve as a nation and the results of the last 5 seasons indicate that we are. Im also aware that changes in the game are allowing tsp to increase and better players are able to be trained now than before, but we are making use of these additions and improving our training which is evidence that we are knowledgeable. And the results will filter through to our NT as the best prospects for our NT, no surprises are Chick, Densi, Cull, Feaster and Meehan.

My real life outside of BB has been well documented and there are times im away on holidays with a family of 4, sometimes in areas of no reception. I always try to give people a heads up on the offsite if im going somewhere. But my dedication to the game of BB since winning a couple of ABBL titles has been devoted to training of our Australian trainees, from 18yrs through to the NT. And i think this leads to my final point- the u21s we are producing that have HOF talent have all been looked at for the bigger picture of training for the NT- just look at Densi, Chick, Meehan, Feaster. The advice i give to each individual is specific to their situation in the game, but ive always got a focus that they need to be adding secondaries to put them in a good position at the ages of 23-24yrs. At the end of the day it is the managers own decision if they use that advice or not, as some want to just pump primary skills which is their own decision.

Last edited by whitewind at 01/12/2022 19:00:18