When your plans fall apart, it's not easy to put them back together
Djordje Zubič, basketball forward, BC Athens and Delaclava national team
Sometimes you figure out exactly what you're going to do, then an unexpected circumstance gets in the way. You figure it out again, you're ready to go, then the moment comes and it turns out you were completely lost anyway.
When we lost Rick at the very start of this tournament, we knew it wasn't going to be easy to start fresh. It's not because we don't have a team who can win the championship without him. Rodney and Sifiso and any other of our options, they're fantastic players who we knew they were going to have their time.
It's because we've had a vision, a destiny from the moment the final horn went in Manchester, and we'd lost the IBC final to Banija by 18 points in front of our own fans. After a little bit of time to mourn the loss and appreciate what we'd done, we immediately began to visualize exactly how we were going to make a new run and win that title, because we never wanted to feel like that again. Some pieces changed, new talent emerged, but we had a recipe that worked. We needed tweaks, but the base was there. The base was that Rick Jones was our captain and our leader, and he was going to be that for Delaclava's first world title. Until he wasn't.
We adjusted. We put in Sifiso Ntenga and Rodney Duncan, and we utilized their talents, and the skills that I bring, that Omar Harris brings, that Pekko Ranta brings, every single member of this team. And all in a row, almost with ease, we took down Hispinas and Pemecutan and Malandrin and Ko-oren.
But you know, winning games is actually easy? When you step on the floor, if everything's lined up right, you're in the flow with forty minutes, putting into practice everything you've worked on, and then you have more points than the other team and that's it. But no amount of consecutive wins does you any good if you're not convinced you're going to win the ones that count.
We lost to Dotivija last night.
We lost to Dotivija because we didn't play as well as they did. That is the one and only reason.
We had our skill. We had our gameplan. We had 15,000 amazing fans in Crystal Lake. And then the game started and none of it seemed to matter.
In truth, we've struggled to realize exactly how we win this tournament now. We're professional athletes - we should be able to get geared up for games against unranked teams, even if we're not sure we have the stuff to win games against Banija and Abanhfleft that aren't even on the calendar yet. But I'm human, and so it keeps me up at night trying to figure that out. Especially when we've made it to a final and now we can't not go back there, because we expect it and so do our fans.
I am the MVP, I have been the MVP for the last seasons, and when I play for BC Athens, even against Rick's Corcorran Flash, perhaps that is true, but when we wear the red and gold, it is absolutely incorrect, because now I have a team that is looking to me to lead, and I don't see how I can do it. Because I spent so much time envisioning how I'd lift that trophy with my whole team, I never stopped to prepare myself for how we might have to succeed in a completely different way.
We will continue to struggle, continue to fight. On paper, we are well in control of our own destiny with plenty of games to play. And in the meantime, we will try to accept this new reality, and imagine our new future within it.
The players we have can win the world title - now it's time to see it for ourselves.