Lin "The Beast" Chih-jeh's record-setting performance in last Friday's contest against the Dacin Tigers earned the top scorer for Taiwan Beer the Super Basketball League's (SBL) Player of Week honor.
Edging past the previous single-game scoring mark of 41, set by the Yulon Dinos' Chen Hsin-an last season, Lin rang up 43 points, along with five rebounds and two assists, in his best offensive outing of the season. His 19 points in the game's third quarter alone was also a new high for an individual player.
PHOTO: SBL
Lin's Player of the Week selection was the icing on the cake for the Taiwan Beer's second-year power forward as he claimed the league's first monthly Most Valuable Player distinction on Wednesday for his exceptional all-round game during the month of January.
The newly established monthly honor was put in place by the Chinese Taipei Basketball Association (CTBA) and the ESPN Star Sports network to recognize an individual player who demonstrates outstanding skill and contribution to his team's success. In addition to the crystal trophy, Lin also received NT10,000 in prize money.
"I am very honored to be here today. There are a lot of great players in this league whose achievements could easily qualify them for this award. I would like to thank my teammates for their support, without which I would not be able to do what I did," Lin said at the award ceremony on Wednesday.
In the eight games that he played in January, "The Beast" averaged 23.0 points, 7.1 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.6 steals per game, clearly making him the dominant force that he has been for Taiwan Beer.
For Lin and his squad, this will be a relatively easy week as they take on the ETTV Antelopes (tomorrow) and the Sina Lions (Sunday), two clubs with losing records (4-7 and 0-12, respectively) in the season so far.
Like the beermen's games versus the Antelopes and the Lions, the favorites in all but one of this week's six matches should not have problems against their weaker opponents, starting with tonight's confrontation between the Tigers and the Lions.
Fresh off back-to-back, two-point victories over the Dinos and Taiwan Beer last weekend, the Tigers have the momentum heading into tonight's game. It would take a perfect game plan and flawless execution on behalf of the Lions to pull off an upset here.
Also in action are the Dinos versus the Bank of Taiwan in tonight's prime-time slot, where the bankers have their pride to defend after suffering a lopsided 106-64 loss at the hands of the Dinos exactly a week ago.
The expected return of Dinos all-star center Tseng Wen-ding will play a critical role in this game in that the bankers will try to attack inside the paint with their physical lineup, and Tseng's effectiveness against such aggressive low-post play could make the difference.
The bankers will not have much time to rest as their schedule brings in the league-leading Videoland Hunters first thing tomorrow afternoon.
This is a very important game for the Hunters in that they need to play a physical club like the bankers in preparation for Sunday's showdown against the Tigers, arguably the hottest team in the league right now.
Since their ugly 86-63 loss to the Dinos on Jan. 8, the Hunters have amassed a 5-0 record to remain at the top of the league for nearly a month. With the expected victory by the Dinos over the bankers this week, a loss to the Tigers could reduce the Hunters' one-and-a-half game lead over the Dinos to just a half-game.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier