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Right, the new season is here.

We've got 5 new teams: Black bears Beernem (from the BBBL), the oldest teams in Belgium TumasStars (from III.4), Sabre Teeth (from III.2), another ancient team Yolymapa (from III.2) and 1 season old team Star Struck (from III.16)

Welcome to the new teams. To all the others, welcome back. With the TV contract having gone up a solid 10k (thanks to everyones higher salary teams) it looks like this is going to be another rough season.

Black Bears Beernem has put close to his entire roster up for sale (and the fact that he was willing to pay 950k salary on the first week, which means we all get higher TV rights, so thank you Beernem for that!). Seeing Beernem put his whole squad up for sale makes me fear that his financials might be in a rough spot.

Either way, new season, new chance to work on our teams. New chance to promote to the BBBL for some and new chance to avoid relegation for others.

With the salary floor having gone up again, my goals this season are simple: stay in II. I've got a little more work to do on my stadium, but more importantly i've gotten the chance to draft some good players and i'm starting my new training cycle. So i'm here hoping to avoid relegation while training my new set of players. I'll be happy if i can manage 6th with another HCA in the PD's this season

Hi ,
Good luck everbody in season 69 !

@Mahesvara congrats with avoiding relegations and the new training prospects !

My goals for season 69 is making the playofs and avoiding relegations .not planning any roster changes .
Also continue training with the same players .

Regards

Hi guys
Thanks for the season preview @Mahesvara

For me, the goal this season is still to train my 2 players with NT's potential. Let's try to be in the play-offs despite the sale of my biggest salary so that we have a positive weekly balance.

it's hard to do a preview with uncertainties regarding rosters.
I'll have a look after the weekend (forgive me but there is a need for birthday celebrations this weekend for me :D). But i've got a fair idea on what both conferences will be like and it's always fun to put it on a forum and then look back at it at the end of the season (especially to see how i got certain parts wrong :D)

Day 1 (Saturday 12 July 2025) : Performances by (https://www.buzzer-manager.com)

Night results
Pongo Squad 130 - Basketcats Poperinge 141
MDM de Cotobade 89 - Court-St-Etienne 94
Sabers Teeth 101 - yolymapa 113
Charleking City 94 - TumaSStars 91
Kriflonius 76 - Black Bears Beernem 105
Duck Dynasty 116 - THOMAS COOK 129
Starstruck 106 - Vraai Vochtig 127
Ballin Grannies 95 - High roller 106

Best collective performance of the evening
Points : 141 : Basketcats Poperinge
Rebounds : 62 : Black Bears Beernem
Assists : 34 : Basketcats Poperinge
Steals : 22 : THOMAS COOK
Block Shots : 8 : High roller

Personal best performances of the evening
Points : 36 : V. Andries (High roller)
Rebounds : 21 : Y. Takamatsu (Court-St-Etienne)
Assists : 11 : D. Schoeters (Pongo Squad)
Steals : 5 : N. Marquez (THOMAS COOK)
Block Shots : 4 : P. Dedecker (Charleking City)

Top 5 of the evening
Point Guard : Y. Xanthos (Basketcats Poperinge) (34 Points, 1 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 1 Steals, 1 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 33
Shooting Guard : D. Schoeters (Pongo Squad) (23 Points, 6 Rebounds, 11 Assists, 1 Steals, 1 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 31
Small Forward : G. Desira (Basketcats Poperinge) (19 Points, 9 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 2 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 30
Power Forward : N. van Baar (Black Bears Beernem) (24 Points, 12 Rebounds, 6 Assists, 3 Steals, 1 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 38
Center : J. Pascual Muro (Duck Dynasty) (27 Points, 15 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 0 Steals, 2 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 35

MVP of the evening
N. van Baar (Black Bears Beernem) (24 Points, 12 Rebounds, 6 Assists, 3 Steals, 1 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 38

The bad performance of the evening
J. Van Poucke (Ballin Grannies) (1 Points, 1 Rebounds, 0 Assists, 0 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : -4

All kinds of statistics
The player who forgot to remove his mittens : P. Zuel (Duck Dynasty), B. Dieng (Duck Dynasty) : 6 Turnovers

Player targeted by the referees : V. Koshechkin (Court-St-Etienne), I. Hoppenbrouwer (Charleking City), E. McCaskie (Starstruck), L. Henry (Ballin Grannies) : 6 Personnal Fouls

The iron-man : F. Ebbers (Pongo Squad), B. Peisser (Court-St-Etienne), A. Deduytsche (Sabers Teeth), G. Geubel (yolymapa), D. Yianikakis (Charleking City), S. Boerkamp (Black Bears Beernem) : 48 Minutes

The shooter : Y. Xanthos (Basketcats Poperinge), A. Deduytsche (Sabers Teeth) : 6 Three points

The best performer : J. Campos (Basketcats Poperinge) : Rating : 16.5

The worst performer : J. Van Poucke (Ballin Grannies) : Rating : 4.5

the wage difference between BBBL and II is big. I could have tried to fight back to div II but the wages would be really high for this league so when i would get back in div BBBL i wouldn't have any room to invest further.

My squad was also getting older so i if i want to cash in on some players, this was the time.

Now I am in Rebuilding fase to hope to develop 1-2 starting players for the future. So I will not fight for promotion.

I wish everybody good luck for this season and a lot of joy!

The blue conference

1) Basketcats Poperinge
Not surprise here that the cats are projected to be near the top of the board. Their roster is strong and with other teams retooling, it feels like they'll get another shot at being the top seed (and likely being the team to beat when it comes to promotion to the BBBL). The question is, can they beat MDM?

2) CharleKing City
The only team that can currently contend with the cats, you don't want to sleep on this team. They'll come out swinging and have a good squad of 8 players. Once they are out of the cup, they are a real powerhouse but as long as they are cup tied, there is a chance of beating them. The best thing that could happen for them is seeing the cats have a long cup run and CKC being out of the cup early, cause then they'll make a proper push for the first spot in the conference.


3) MDM de Cotobade
Many would expect MDM to reclaim their top spot, but right now it feels like they are focussing on developping their trainees and promotion to the BBBL would be more harmfull than good. So they'll go for a steady spot in the PO's and could potentially upset any of the teams with HCA come PO time. However, with a rough starting schedule, it should be interesting to see how they navigate the start of the season.

4) Court-St-Etienne
A very strong squad, but the concern here is how will they improve? No clear trainees means they might need to look into getting an extra player if they want to push forwards, but with a rather large salary mass, that would put a big pressure on their finances. However, maybe with a late addition which could put them over the top? If not, another PO birth should be their right.

5) Pongo Squad
A strong rotation of players, but their focus is on developing the trainees. Because of that, they'll take a couple of losses, but you'd hate to face them in the Play downs, cause they are a team that belong in the top 4 of the conference.

6) Yolymapa
A solid promoted team from III with a good core players. However, the feeling here is that they'll also be focussing on developing the trainees, meaning they'll lose some games and in the blue conference, it's a very strong top 5 to get into. However, when it comes to the play downs, if Yolymapa gets HCA, you can expect a manager who is as experienced as Wortel to pull out a win and stay in the division.

7) TumasStars
The oldest team in Belgium promoted back to II, but they ended up in the wrong conference. They've got a couple of players that should be able to keep one team behind them, but they'll have their chance in the Play downs to stay. The 5th on the red conference could lose to the 7th of the blue conference. The blue conference is WAY stronger than the red conference, so it should be interesting to see how an experienced manager like TmS will navigate the season

8) Sabers Teeth
unfortunately there has to be an 8th team Starstruck got very unlucky to get into this conference. Abélard Deduytsche is a very good player and likely being trained for the NT, but other than him, there isn't much on that team. Unless some serious investments happen, it could be back to III, unless if he can pull off some serious upsets!

Next is the red Division, which is the weaker of the 2 conferences

Right, with the rosters settled more or less, here is my preview:

Red side:
1) High Roller
High Roller might not want to deal with the pressure, but with Beernem selling his players, he's got the best team and is ready to take the top spot in the conference. He's probably going to hate me for saying this, but financially he's been getting about 700k more than the average team in the division AND he's got his economy sorted out. So he's banking about 2Mil per season atm, so he'll probably be able to sustain a move to the BBBL should it materialise. He is training some youngsters tho, so he might not want to promote, but he's got the best team in the conference.

2) Ballin Grannies
With an insane roster, centered around Belgians, it's an utter surprise that they were in III. They clearly had the funds and could very well end up tops. This is the surprise of the teams that have promoted and could take the red conference by storm. A fully build arena suggests that they are truely ready to fight a PO birth.

3) Black Bears Beernem
The BBBL team is going through a rebuilding phase, but with the talents they still got on the roster, they should be able to get a PO spot. The question is how long they are looking to play in II and what investments will be made with the money they'll get from selling their star players.

4) Thomas Cook
The team with the best stamina out of everyone. Full Court Press is their favorite tactic and it causes havoc to any opponent they face. With plenty of teams sorting out their arena's, it feels as though they could slip into the PO's. The big question tho is how they still haven't build their stadium. Being one of the oldest teams in belgium, their stadium capacity is still only 7.5k so if the games don't go their way, then they could be really struggling in terms of economics. However with many teams building up their arena's, they should be fine.

5) Vraai Vochtig
The team that should have been in the PO's, but made a massive mistake and barely managed to avoid demotion, they'll be back for another round. The difference being that everyone knows they'll have to look out for this team. In lights of recent information, they have to build their finances out more while training youngsters, so they might just miss out on the PO's.

6) Krilfonius
3 top players means you'll always be in for a hard game against them, but the rest of the trainees are still lagging slightly behind. Krilfonius made the PO's last season, mostly due to a weird series of decisions at the end of the season, but this season everyone knows their strength and therefor, they won't be able to surprise their opponents as easely as they could last season.

7) Duck Dynasty
Starting a new training cycle means that the Ducks will be in for a rough season. If they field their traditional line up, they probably could aim for a PO spot, but the fact that they are happy to focus on the training and are ready to potentially get demoted, it should come as no surprised that they'll be looking to grab some wins and somehow stay competitive. Once again, they are near the bottom of the pile when it comes to salary, which just goes to show that they'll once again have to perform miracles if they wish to stay up.

8) Starstruck
A team with great potential. However, they managed to promote in their first season, but this is where they should hit their cealing. With a stadium that hasn't properly been build and salary well below the players salary floor, they'll be lagging behind for the majority of the season and should use all the funds they gain into building out their economy.


PS: if you are upset with the prediction, do your best to prove me wrong. I love seeing things work out differently. remember, there will be injuries that can impact games

Last edited by Mahesvara at 7/15/2025 4:08:56 PM