Our run in the Consolation Cup came to an end this week - we just couldn't get past Estonia's three big guns despite a very solid effort defensively. Our shooting let us down to a certain extent an despite from heroic effort from Ian Bill on the boards we didn't really put up much of fight against their two salary monsters in the paint.
It's been a good run, though, winning eight straight games to make it to the second round of the knock out stage, which has earned us the right to host next season's Asian Cup. This was realistically our primary goal once we were knocked out of the repechage games to start this season so the work will start now to begin to develop a squad that can challenge for a place, initially in the semi finals and hopefully break through for our first World Cup appearance in some time.
In particularly I'll be on the look out for key inside players for the next few seasons to come so if you have a big man who is close to or has potential to be close to making the mark this season feel free to put him on my radar.
At this point we can formally say farewell to veterans Ronny Gibbins and Du Hongjing, who have officially played their last games for the national side. Gibbins was a work horse in the paint for us while Hongjing will go down as one of our most dominant guards at National level, ending his career as the all time assist leader and top 3 in scoring. most importantly for the team losing these two guys dints our experience out on the court, but it also will create opportunities for the next generation to push through.