Euros Blog: A Monumentally Whelming Day 1
Games and results don't always have to be surprising to be enjoyable. Most of today was neither.
Every day throughout the European Championships 2021, we will be bringing you our most validated-by-nobody takes on the day’s action. People seem to enjoy reading it, and writing it is a laugh. What more justification could we possibly need?
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Let’s get into it…
Italy 82 - 28 Austria
Mark’s Prediction: Italy by 22
James’s Prediction: Italy by 14
I called it yesterday. I absolutely do not know why they opened the tournament with this game. Italy are decent but precisely nobody’s idea of a showcase team. Austria suck.
Myself, James and Mendel had a good laugh at Italy taking exactly one mid-pointer in their 12-man squad, but that min/max approach to classification was at least enough to get them by Austria, as their bigs tore them up from start to finish in basically any configuration.
Italy had 7 bigs combine for 62 of their 82 points. Their bigs also seem to fit together with a good amount of flexibility, which means they might just be able to pummel some opposing Bench Units(TM) by being bigger than them at all times. Also cool to see Dimitri Tanghe competing for Italy for the first time. That guy grew up in Belgium and is now a verified Italian. I can’t even begin to imagine his credentials when it comes to knowing stuff about chocolate.
Not much to report on Austria. I will be surprised if I see them beat anyone this tournament, mainly because I absolutely won’t be watching when they play either Lithuania or Switzerland.
Turkey 55 vs 63 Netherlands
Mark: Netherlands by 8
James: Netherlands by 7
Netherlands by 7, said James. My days, I can’t even begin to imagine the shame he must be feeling at being off by so much. It’s unfathomable. I’d honestly be surprised if he could stand to show his face in any kind of would-be basketball media ever again.
That’s a long way of saying NETHERLANDS BY 8. That’s what I called. It’s almost like I knew. Except I didn’t. Shout-out to Mendel for not allowing the Netherlands to win by too many. That guy will do anything to see Bench Units succeed as an entity.
The real story here is that Ozgur Gurbulak, the Czar of all things Turkish Wheelchair Basketball, did not play a second. Turkey were pretty compromised, and the Netherlands ultimately pulled out a satisfactory-but-not-hugely convincing win against what I would call inferior opposition.
In all fairness, Turkey still have enough talent to hang around. Ugur Toprak and Ismail Ar combined for 25 points and their cast of role players chucked in enough single-digit performances to hang tight in a low-scoring game. Selim Sayak, who is an objectively good player, only played 25 seconds. Baffled.
The Netherlands got 13 from both Mendel and Robin Poggenswich, but were lead by 22 from Mustafa Korkmaz off the bench. Having enough 3.0’s to bring that guy in for some bonus points is a bit nuts. The only concern there is that their alternate lineup, featuring Mattijs Bellers and Arie Twigt, only played 2:39. They’re going to need that look to be worth playing time at some point if they want to really compete.
Poland 69 vs 54 Switzerland
Mark: Poland by 16
James: Poland by 12
Oh man. Off by 1 on my prediction. I feel like James.
The big news here is that Mateusz Filipski, Andrzej Macek and Krysztof Bandura outscored Switzerland 56-54. They would have beaten them playing 3v5.
Switzerland look real shallow. Maurice Amacher and Janic Binda are decent complementary players, but you’re probably in a spot of bother when they’re your only players to score in double figures.
Poland are also shallow, but the fact they got this win while only getting 2 points from Dominik Mosler means they probably have some untapped ceiling that Switzerland can only dream of.
Great Britain 103 vs 46 Israel
Mark: GB by 26
James: GB by 30
We'll, me and James were almost equally wrong on this one. In fact, if you added both our predicted margin of victories together, it would still come up one point shy of how many points GB pounded Israel by. The simplest explanation is that we’re bad at this and using no real logic or system.
The interesting thing here is that GB actually lost the first quarter by 3 and still squeaked out a 57-point win. They won the final three Q’s by 22, 15 and 23, respectively. That will turn around most slow starts.
GB’s depth showed out here, with all 12 players seeing the floor for at least 8 minutes and 11 of them getting on the scoreboard. It was the 2018 World Championships lineup that busted the game open, but GB showed they have plenty of options going forward. Gregg Warburton and Kyle Marsh jumped straight in from their club-season from, dropping 18 each.
Israel only got Amit Vigoda and Shay Barbibay scraping into double figures (10 each). They have some decent bigs but nothing like enough lineup flexibility to match GB’s ensemble. I’d expect them to be able to out-muscle some weaker teams but struggle to cover their weaknesses against anyone more balanced than them.
Germany 87 vs 19 Lithuania
Mark: Germany by 47
James: Germany by 26
C’mon, man. Don’t make me write this one up. Lithuanian names are hard to spell and I’m not making that level of effort for a team whose leading score registered 7 whole points.
Shout-out to Germany. That will be all.
Spain 64 vs 61 France
Mark: France by 9
James: Spain by 11
Yeah ok, France did in fact not win this one by 9. Rose Hollerman sent me many 🤣 emojis when she saw this one, and it pains me to say they were justified.
After a 10-2 Spain run to open the game, this one was intense for the next 36 minutes. Spain’s continuity was a real factor here, with them having all their units nailed on while France lost some time looking for answers in their rotation.
Spain got their typical scoring efforts from Jordi Ruiz and Asier Garcia, but were lead by 14 points in 16 spark-plug minutes from Pincho Ortega. With the couple of big 3.0’s that Spain are missing this year, that guy has x-factor written all over him.
Speaking of 3.0’s, man do France have a lot of options as mid-pointers. Their highs were carrying in this game (Nico Jouanserre with 20, Alexis Ramonet with 12), but France have size, speed and shooting in different 2.5-3.5 players. They couldn’t find the balance in this game, as Spain outscored them 42-28 in the paint.
Even with the loss in this one, it looks like anyone who pegged France in a low spot in our predictions poll yesterday might look daft pretty soon.
Up Tomorrow…
Sticking with the old Bench Units gimmick that we’ve used since 2018, We’re going to list out tomorrow’s schedule and our predictions for the results, based on almost nothing at all.
All game times are in Central European Time:
10:00am - Great Britain vs France (Women)
Mark: GB by 6
James: GB by 11
11:00am - Lithuania vs Poland (Men)
Mark: Poland by 30
James: Poland by 23
12:15pm - Austria vs Turkey (Men)
Mark: Turkey by 41
James: Turkey by 29
1:15pm - Spain vs Switzerland (Men)
Mark: Spain by 24
James: Spain by 36
2:30pm - Great Britain vs Netherlands (Men)
Mark: GB by 11
James: GB by 19
3:30pm - Netherlands vs Germany (Women)
Mark: Netherlands by 8
James: Netherlands by 14
4:45pm - Spain vs Turkey (Women)
Mark: Spain by 28
James: Spain by 30
5:45pm - France vs Germany (Men)
Mark: Germany by 3
James: Germany by 9
7:00pm - Israel vs Italy (Men)
Mark: Italy by 18
James: Italy by 15
See you all tomorrow! Let’s see if any of tomorrow’s teams have noticed that the secret formula to win games in this tournament is to have your team listed on the left-hand side of the scoreboard.