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Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!

National team press release:


After 2-0 Start Nippon NT Looking to Advance

With a second straight upset win over Team Australia the Nippon National Team has its sights on advancing to the next round and trying to maximize its good fortunes. In a game that went back and forth all night our team took the lead for good with just 2:00 left on the clock and closed out a 99-91 victory over the heavily favored Aussies. There were many heroes in this game including leading scorer Furusawa (19pts), top rebounder Hayakawa (18), top assists Ochi (7), and top steals Tagawa (3). But the biggest highlight for the night was the bench play from Hara, Eguchi, Sonoda, Kouzuki, and Ueda who together average a +13 +/- over their opponents. Both Hara and Kouzuki had been called up to the team just the day before the game.

The Next opponent for team Japan is the also undefeated Malaysian Nationals. Both the Malay NT Manager Simply Vince and top Malay fanboy Ashurri made a point to post comments directly to Nippon manager Taiyo, a clear sign they will not be taking us lightly. Hearing this Furusawa (always the loud mouth) responded, “Bring them on. We’ll be ready for them.” To which Coach Taiyo responded, “That boy better learn to shut up or somebody is going to put him in his place someday.”


Week 2 Depth Chart:

Point Guard
Takatoshi Tagawa - Baikinman
Rikkio Eguchi - bebop Jazz
Haruki Fujii - SAMANTH BASKET

Shooting Guard
Hideki Ochi - BSC Bern West
*Soichi Hara - KoriPullo-Pojat
Haruki Fujii - SAMANTH BASKET

Small Forward
Tooro Oishi - Stunners
Naoya Ueda - Swoosh
Haruki Fujii - SAMANTH BASKET

Power Forward
Yusuke Furusawa - SLZH
Hirofumi Sonoda - Kyoto Shogun
Mitsuo Shibukji - Sapporro Fighters

Center
Satashi Hayakawa - es-es
*Kaname Kouzuki - Kyoto Shogun
Mitsuo Shibukji - Sapporro Fighters



*Indicates player was added to NT this week.


Last edited by Taiyo at 2/28/2012 9:15:10 AM

It looks like adding Hara and Kouzuki was a masterstroke as our bench was excellent. Kouzuki got the best rating on our team, Hara got the second best. It is a funny match but while our stars like Furusawa, Tagawa and Oishi were on we were losing. While Hara, Kouzuki, Eguchi, Ueda and the mighty Sonoda were on we were winning big in a short time. Go the bench!

Kouzuki got the best rating on our team

Don't let it go to your head.......

The funny thing about ratings, tend to have higher ratings the less minutes you play. Probably becuase they are more fresh on average for the portion that they do play.

Last edited by Taiyo at 3/1/2012 6:42:20 AM

Don't let it go to your head

I know that. I should give up on being a comedian, no-one ever gets my jokes here.

Fantastic GS update for us.

Of our top 8 players 6 are proficient. Of our top 12 all but one are at least strong. If we can beat the Phillipines and Australia we surely have a chance against Malaysia even though they have 4 players >$200k salaries.

Week 3 Preview - Malaysia

This weeks game against Malaysia provides an exciting match-up of the top two teams in our group with the winner being the only remaining undefeated team. Compared with our expectations coming into the season this game has become both more important and less important than originally thought. The importance has increase because if we can win this game we have a good chance of being the top team out of our bracket as our remaining games will be against the weaker half of the group. On the other hand, since we got to surprise wins in the first two games, we are in a much better position to advance and their is much less pressure to try to steal a win against Malaysia to help our chances.

As others have pointed out, we had a nice Game Shape update this week so that should certainly help our chances. I look forward to a great effort from the team and let's all hope for a good outcome.

The game begins at 7:30pm tonight Japan time. Unfortunately, due to my travel schedule I am unable to join in person so I will have to watch the tape replay of the game later

Well it was back to earth but still a great season so far. Looks like everyone except Furusawa and Suenami had a very bad shooting night. Especially bad by Hayakawa who was in proficient GS and was the right choice but who was horrible hitting 2/10, as many turnovers as defensive rebounds (3) and fouled out in 26 minutes.

Frickin' Lazarus man...

National Team Press Release



Nippon NT slips to Malaysia, rallies over India to 3-1

Let me start by apologizing for the lack of posts recently. I had a trip to Singapore last week and then got sick there over the weekend before my return and I am just now recovering. So let me try to catch up on things.

Game 3: Malaysia 104 – Nippon 89
Now with Nippon fully in the spotlight Malaysia came into the game ready to battle, and on this night our team didn’t seem up to the challenge. If you look at the stat sheet, the game was pretty even across the board except for FG% where Malaysia led 48% to 39%. Malaysia dominated inside with their two starting Bigs combining for 57pts. For Nippon, Furusawa was the main source of production with 29 points and 17 rebounds. There wasn’t much more production to highlight for the rest of the team.

As the teams walked off the a sideline reporter grabbed Furusawa and asked “So, what happened to you guys out there tonight” To that Furusawa responded “I Lost my team. Where did they go? Asked around but nobody knows!”

Line-up used against Malaysia:

Point Guard
Takatoshi Tagawa
*Genki Kanagaki
Haruki Fuji

Shooting Guard
Hideki Ochi
Masatomo Saiki
*Genki Kanagaki

Small Forward
Tooro Oishi
Yuhei Suenami
Haoya Ueda

Power Forward
Yusuke Furusawa
Hirofumi Sonoda
Kaname Kouzuki

Center
Satashi Hayakawa
Hirofumi Sonoda
Kaname Kouzuki

*denotes player was added to roster for this game



Game 4: Nippon 99 – India 85

Nippon NT bounces back from a disappointing first loss to get back on track with a convincing win over India. Our team was actually down 3 points at half but completely took over in the second, surging to a 21 point lead late in the 4th quarter. The player of the game for our boys was Hirofumi Sonoda with28pts and 12 boards. Other standouts included Fursawa (21pts, 10reb), Oishi (18pts, 5ast), and Tagawa (8pts, 7ast). From a team perspective there were 30 total assists which is the best this season.

Seeing a Camera, Furusawa grabbed the MIC “My brother Sonoda, and brother Oishi came to play. It’s so much more fun with the boys around. And did you see the way Tagawa was throwing the rock? Man that was Awesome!!! Second round here we come.”

Next week we are on bye and I’m trying to get a game against one of the Americas teams that are on bye as well. Game of note next week for our standings is Malaysia vs Australia.


Line-up used against India:

Point Guard
Takatoshi Tagawa
Rikkio Egguchi
Genki Kanagaki

Shooting Guard
Hideki Ochi
Masatomo Saiki
Genki Kanagaki

Small Forward
Tooro Oishi
Haoya Ueda
Yuhei Suenami

Power Forward
Yusuke Furusawa
Mitsuo Shibukji
Satashi Hayakawa

Center
Hirofumi Sonoda
Mitsuo Shibukji
Satashi Hayakawa

Brilliant coaching and reading this just made my day:

The player of the game for our boys was Hirofumi Sonoda with28pts and 12 boards.

That is what I am working for. All those trainings when he was already capped, proficient GS by risking league matches. Excellent work by the whole team and we are moving up the rankings and really taking some teams by surprise.