Our first WIN!

We beat Portugal today 53-47!!! It was such a great feeling to finally get a win. The girls played the hardest that I have ever seen them play. They were sacrificing their bodies for loose balls, they were going to the basket stronger than I have ever seen before! It was awesome! They were finally playing like the team that came back from 20 down in Estonia and the team that beat Greece in the first test game! If we can keep playing like this I really think that we still have a chance to make some noise in this tournament.

Not very Hungary

We lost again today 47 to 63 Hungary just really outplayed us, not because they were any better or did anything special, they just wanted it more than we did. Excuse the pun but they were just Hungrier than we were. They were beating us to loose balls and just out working us. It was really frustrating for everyone. We have worked way to hard to get to this point and then lose because we are being out hustled and outworked, not outplayed.

We need to find the team that was down 20 against Estonia, we need to fight like that team again.

Let the games begin

Last night all the teams gathered in town for the Opening Ceremonies of the tournament. They had some traditional Macedonian dancing and then all the teams were announced. It was pretty cool.

We ended up losing to Greece 59-71 today. They pressed us for a majority of the game, which they had not done in either of the two test games. We just did not handle the pressure the way that we should have, we got rattled at the beginning and never really recovered. It is disappointing because we had played so well against them in Thessaloniki and we were really counting on being able to beat them and start off the tournament with a win.

But there is no time to sulk about it, we play Hungary tomorrow, which will be a tough game as well. We need to move on from today and focus on tomorrow.

The Europeans at last....

Well we are finally here, all the preparation and everything we have been doing these past 4 weeks leads up to this. There are 11 teams in the Division B tournament, split into two groups.
Great Britain
Portugal
Greece
Belgium
Hungary
Austria

Romania
Slovakia
FYR of Macedonia
Netherlands
Israel

The way it works is you play everyone in your group once and the top four teams out of each group make it to the second round. In the second round you play a quarter final cross over game with someone from the other group. From there semifinals and then a final.

The two finalists get promoted to Division A. We need to win at least 2 games to give ourselves a chance to advance.

This morning there was a technical meeting where you go over everything for the tournament. There you have to present the commissioner with all of the player’s passports, FIBA player license cards, and a list from FIBA of all of the approved players. You also present your home and away kit and shooting shirt to show that it has the FIBA Europe logo sewn onto it and is the color it should be. Once you do all of that you are cleared for competition.

We then had a practice session later that night and prepared for our game against Greece the next day. It will be a tough game after we have already played them twice in the last 4 days, but our girls know that they can be beaten. They just have to do it for a second time.