Subject: Senior NT

yes, i gambled that their manager would stick to 3 point shooting - i didnt think we would beat them by so much in the first quarter!
They were the better team in the end though. Their centre was a monster.

anyway, we will play them again so will have a second chance.

sad to see such a score, knowing previous game we lost only by 7 points. Looks like UK will finish season with no wins At least U-19 still holding up.

hey thanks for following the NT teams and posting here again. I'm glad there is some interest.

First of all, i am sorry i haven't been able to get a win. I tried my best, but it wasn't meant to be this time.

I am disappointed too with the Hungary result, but let me explain why i think this happened and my decisions over the last game or two.

So Hungary now have more energy than us which helped them, on top of their players being better (higher ovr) and probably better trained too. Some of our highest OVR players are trained very strangely (in my opinion and i havent seen anything like that in other NTs yet).

Since we havent been able to qualify i have also experimented with different tactics. I suspected playing an outside game against Hungary could be worse than playing an inside game, but i really thought it would keep the game closer.

I've also been giving more court time to some of the younger guys who are actually better trained generally than the older guys. However, they can't stand up to the players they are facing - yet.

I have also rotated players more and given court time to those players as a reward those managers who have followed my advice and changed their training programmes.

Some of the managers of older players haven't worked with me, and now their players have fallen too far behind the others that have, and the younger guys coming through. So, if i have another season as NT manager i will be removing those players and adding a lot more of the new guys leaving the U19s.

Thanks for voting me as NT manager again. I will do my best to win some games and develop our team as the newer guys come through.

Just a quick message for now, but im really looking for some SG and SF players that could be good enough for the team.

mail me any suggestions

as always if there are any managers that would like to help, lend me their scouts etc, give me a shout.

Thanks!

So i've called up a few more promising 20/21 year olds to provide a bit more depth across all the positions. Hopefully that will give them a bit of a training boost and they will be more likely to compete for a good playing spot in the future. They may not get any game time though.

Just a warning that the 25/26 year olds, particularly in the bottom half of the roster, are unlikely to stay in the team for much longer after this season ends.

If you have players on the NT, i would encourage scouting the other players that your player is competing with. I would like to see some slightly different builds at each position, particularly around the amount of shooting and/or blocking.

I have picked 23 players. So i have two slots left i would like to give to promising young players. Mail me if you think i have overlooked anyone.

I'm really excited about what i'm seeing in the new crop of youngsters so keep up the academy investments and good training!

Here's to a good WC run.

I'm a bit sad about my players Mayer performance in friendly games. Can't really understand what he lacks as a PG. The only thing i see it's small experience but can't believe it has that big influence.

Hi jonasgudd, thank you for posting here again.
You have made a really interesting point.

Your PG Mayer is your second highest scoring player currently averaging 15 points per game and your assist leader with almost 7 assists per game.

However in the first 3 NT friendlies, he has averaged 5 points and almost 6 assists.

I am not worried by his points scored. I think he has played well in the friendlies.

He is a point guard and he is there to make assists first (finding every player that has the best open shot) and points second. If he is so much better than his team mates so that he can get great shooting chances for himself (and he is a better shooter than the rest) i would expect him to take more shots, and score more if he is making good decisions and taking/making the right shots.

I think against 1.1 players, (and compared to the rest of your team) Mayer is a star, and so it makes sense he scores a lot of points.

However, on a national team he is currently amongst equals and playing against players who are equal or better than him. So he will pass more and shoot less.

It is hard to see how good he is at NT level. If he has hardly any assists it could be that our NT is being dominated by all the other teams (worse players/ worse tactics), but he is still making all the right decisions.

The best thing would be to compare his performance to those of other PGs i play in the team. We are looking for a good assist to turnover ratio (or assist+steal to turnover ratio).

There is also the player rating which is a guide - train his skills (ignoring shooting/blocking) in a way that maximises this and pick a shooting and blocking level you are happy with.

I have some thoughts about this and will message you some suggestions.

I am very happy to have your best young players on the team and i hope you will carry on developing and training them well in the future.

Does anyone else have any comments about our NT players performance so far?

Hi guys, I think Mayer is an amazing player and Jonas from AB has done a great job with his training. I really like Mayer and I would think he is right up there as one of the very best PG's we have atm.

As far as experience goes, yes it certainly does come into play. And I echo Fluff's sentiments with Sho/Blk - esp with a PG, focus on his core skills (Ps/Te/Sp)and I'm sure 100% he will hit the top.

Laters, N

Hi everyone.
Tonight the World Cup qualifiers start!
We are in Group 3, with France, Croatia, Lithuania and Sweden.
France are a particularly dominant team and all these teams will expect to qualify for the next stage.
Croatia and Sweden were both in our group last season so it will be interesting to see how we do against these teams later on.

I am very excited this season because we are now seeing a new crop of young players competing for places in the national team. Over half of the roster are 20 or 21 years old.

At point guard we have a lot of stars coming through - Mayer (Asilu), Fenton (Dallas) to mention two of them.

At shooting guard we have Mahmood and Walters (Hearts)

Hicks (Sentinels) at small forward

and Gallagher (Dragons), Clegg (Fodder) and others at the power forward and centre positions.

Tonight, we play Lithuania on the road, tip off 7pm.

Please come and sit with me courtside to watch the game!

I'm afraid we lost our game against Lithuania last night.
With those guys its all about the big men - Kruminsis and Prievelis are big units under the basket. It was actually a very close game, we just had a bad run at the end of the first quarter. We almost got back into it again in the 2nd quarter, but it was just too much.

It just shows, all it takes is a strong run of baskets from the other team and that can decide the game :/

The guys are playing well otherwise, and i am very happy with how their managers have trained them the last couple seasons.

Hi guys im really sorry about tonights game against Croatia. I chose my tactics, but hadn't set them properly (it was set to a different default than I expected).
I wont make the same mistake again. I'm gutted.

home game vs Sweden in an hour. They are a quality team, it will be an exciting game!

Just backing Fluff up a bit here. For those that are following the NT, be assured that we are looking at every possibility. Our player pool is limited in comparison to the other nations. We have a number of positional concerns and Mark is doing everything he can do sort it all out.

It's not a question of tactics the poor run of results merely reflect that we are up against very strong players from nations that are able to pick at a higher level. They simply have more choice and more players going through higher training facilities.

Builds are being sent out and Fluff is doing what he can to keep it all going.

I do believe he is the best man for the job. Mark plays and coaches basketball outside of PPM. he has a great insight as to what can and could be achieved, it's finding the players from our resources that gives us problems.

I understand it can be frustrating watching a NT that isn't picking up results. What would be more concerning would be someone in charge who really wasn't giving it a lot of thought and care. And that's certainly not the case.

Stick with Mark and give him your support. I'm sure would really appreciate it.

Thanks for reading and have a great Christmas guys !

Best,

Nigel

Thanks Nigel. I do try hard, and I know our players are generally weaker but i was hoping for a much closer game than todays.

Well the Sweden game was ridiculous. I'm still waiting for the game summary. They went on an absurd run in the second quarter, boosted by 3 pointers such that i've never seen before.

*sigh* !

I'll have a good look tomorrow and see what i can learn.

Is unbelievable!

"It's not a question of tactics":
Please, there are no variants defined in your system. Every opponent in the World Cup qualifying group was used combination defense. And you?: Continuity offense every game. C'mon! Results: First game was lost for 25 points vs Lithuania (a rival with similar teams' strength and game importance High)
basketball.powerplaymanag...
In addition, you used man to man defense against the strongest opponents: Croatia, Sweden and France. Results: beatings in every quarter.

"... merely reflect that we are up against very strong players from nations that are able to pick at a higher level.":
basketball.powerplaymanag...
basketball.powerplaymanag...
The suitable strategy

I play too basketball outside PPM

That's all. My best wishes for a happy Christmas to you all!

Sincerily,

┼ Matt ┼