So our scenarios to advance:
- Beat the Philippines (ha!)
- We lose by less than 11 points and Kazak loses to Taiwan
Well, it didn't happen. As usual, it was tantalizingly close though. We were only down 3 at the half and down 10 in the 4th quarter, but then we just absolutely fell apart in the 4th, losing by 24. It hurts too because Kazakhstan lost, so we lose on the freaking point differential tiebreaker. Awful. India somehow advances, despite losing to us and losing to Hanguk (Hanguk's only win).
So many regrets. I should never have TIE'd Malaysia in our opening game since we had a bye the following week. If we Normal, we would've won (we lost by 4). Never wanted to CT Kazakhstan but I knew that they were going to CT no matter what. And of course, it didn't pay off, losing on a 25-footer at the buzzer. And that also killed our enthusiasm for the last two games, when point differential was such a big factor. Just 13 points over the course of 6 games was the difference between advancing and losing. Could've easily been 4-2, but instead we're 2-4 and off to scrimmage-land and the consolation tournament. It hurts.
Keep up the good training, and someone buy Jonathan Bedenham so we can finally have some inside presence. He's on the market for $3 million right now:
(8205437)