HoosierPal

Th U20 Tourney is over. Germany finished 12th in the A Division and Netherlands 4th in the B Division. Final stats for Brockhoff and Pikaar are linked below. Netherlands needed a top 2 finish to be promoted to the A Division. 15th and 16th in the A Division were relegated to the B Division, so Germany remains where they were. https://www.fiba.basketball/en/events/fiba-u20-eurobasket-2024/teams/germany/266015-kilian-brockhoff https://www.fiba.basketball/en/events/fiba-u20-eurobasket-2024-division-b/teams/netherlands/321508-max-pikaar

Teams are allowed an additional 4 hours per week of supervised strength and conditioning training. This 8 hour framework (4 practice plus 4 conditioning) begins on July 20 and can last up to eight weeks until the school’s first day of classes or Sept. 15, whichever is earlier.

For for Stef VB. https://www.fiba.basketball/en/events/fiba-u20-eurobasket-2024-division-b/news/vote-who-will-be-mvp-of-the-fiba-u20-eurobasket-division-b This link allows you to vote on the MVP in the U20 Eurobasketball Division B tourney. Stef van Bussell is back and forth between first and second. Vote for Stef. Why not? It doesn't matter if you saw one second of any game or not. Pikaar, is in 9th place in the voting. Vote for Pikaar also, but he ain't gonna win the trophy.

Germany lost in the Round of 16 and are done in the main bracket. Here are Brockhoff's stats for the tourney to date. They are still playing for 9-12th place in the consolation bracket https://www.fiba.basketball/en/events/fiba-u20-eurobasket-2024/teams/germany/266015-kilian-brockhoff Pikaar's stats to date are in the link. The Netherlands are in the semi-finals of the B Division. https://www.fiba.basketball/en/events/fiba-u20-eurobasket-2024-division-b/teams/netherlands/321508-max-pikaar

Don't forget our Texas JC IM Hurdles champ, Sekeue Barentine

Congrats TJ

6 points and 5 rebounds in 17+ min today for Brockhoff in a German win over Israel. I watched the second half of the game, and frankly it wasn't a very interesting or well played game. There were several spectators, and there was video with no announcers. The microphones were on as you could hear the action on the floor. Weird. Through the 3 Group games, Brockhoff averaged 6.3 ppg, 4.3 rpg, and 1.0 bpg playing 13.7 mpg. https://www.fiba.basketball/en/events/fiba-u20-eurobasket-2024/teams/germany#statistics The "Round of 16" starts mid week and the German's play France. This appears to be a bracket from here on. All 16 participants were seeded based on Group results.

For those following, in today's U20 games, Germany by 15 over Czechia. Brockhoff 5:24 played, 0 points 1 rebound Netherlands, 27 pt win over Great Britain: Pikaar in 30:44 min, 9 pts (1/4 from 3), and 12 boards. SvB lead the team with 19 points.

Good news, Brockhoff lead the Germans in scoring with 13 points on 5 of 9 shooting, in rebounding with 7 and in blocks with 2. Bad news is Italy put a whomping on the Germans, 87-67. It was a 3 point game at halftime. According to the U20 link above, Italy is 8th in the World and Germany 10th. Germany has Group games left with Israel (14th) and Czechia (45th)

Using the B Division link from above, I noticed that Stef Van Bussel and Max Pikaar are teammates for the Dutch. Pretty cool.

You can follow the U20 Euro's with these two links. The Tourney has two divisions, with Germany in the A and Netherlands in the B division. The two teams don't play each other in this tourney. Germany plays Italy tomorrow and the Dutch take on Portugal tomorrow. https://www.fiba.basketball/en/events/fiba-u20-eurobasket-2024 https://www.fiba.basketball/en/events/fiba-u20-eurobasket-2024-division-b

For me the issue isn't the number of teams in the A10. Fourteen or 15 teams, whatever. My issue is with playing 18 conference games. I'm for playing two less, making a 16 game league schedule and adding two OOC games. You can decide common A10 opponents with either a 16 game schedule. Of course the issue is finding two more OOC opponents that don't turn out to be buy games, or otherwise resume killers. With the Power conferences either at or going to 20 games, we can't look at them to fill the gap. Perhaps aligning with the Mountain West, American, MVC, or WCC for Challenges could solve some of the scheduling issue. I certainly don't want the A10 to go to a 20 game conference schedule. (But would a 20 game schedule stop the Chicago State and Jackson State buy games?) Nothing is easy. BTW, Charleston's last three NET's were 97, 51 and 144. Seems like they would be a decent add.

I was curious and pulled up the 144 ratings from last season. Six teams were on the list with St Joe at 126 the first A10 team listed. This season will have 8 on the list with UMass at 118 starting the rundown. Progress?