Jien Ming-fu and Wu Yong-ren's combined 38 points, 14 rebounds, and 13 assists helped the Bank of Taiwan edge past YMY 99-97 in Taiwan's Super Basketball League action at the Taipei Physical Education College Gymnasium on Friday night.
The backcourt tandem for the financial wizards put together another fine effort following last Sunday's 109-87 trouncing of the Vidoeland Hunters to move their winning percentage to above .500 (14-13) for the first time this season -- just one victory shy of qualifying for the postseason play.
"All we have to do is win one of the four [games remaining in the regular season] and we are in [postseason play]," Bank of Taiwan coach Wei Chen-ming said.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SBL
Friday's game started with YMY hitting over half of their shots in the first quarter to take a 25-18 lead.
It took six "threes" by the slow-starting bankers to take control of the game in the second quarter as they answered with 34 points to close out the first half leading by four (52-48).
YMY then evened things up midway through the third quarter, the bankers' three-point attack was switched on again as they managed to widen the lead back up to double-digits.
But a tenacious YMY rally, coupled with several misfires and mental mistakes by the bankers kept YMY within striking distance before the bankers finally eked out the win in the closing seconds.
Lin Chuin-fong, Chu Yong-hong and Yang Jing-ming (the rest of the bankers' starting five) also scored in double-digits for the game.
As for YMY (2-23), which had six different players scoring in double-digits, inability to come up with the key shots late in the game ultimately cost them the chance to win as they lost their 22nd straight game of the season.
Hunters 91, Dinos 100
For the second time in two weeks the Yulon Dinos' Chou Shih-yuan took matters into his own hands and single-handedly delivered the knockout punch -- this time in a game against the Hunters.
It was Chou's last-second three-pointer and a spectacular defensive block that sealed the 80-77 win for the Dinos on Feb. 26.
In Friday's game, it was Chou's career-high 33 points that helped the Dinos sink the Hunters 100-91 for their fourth straight win.
Resorting to an effective inside attack gave the Hunters a 17-15 lead at the end of the first quarter. The Hunters held leads as big as six points in the second quarter before the Dinos fought back to claim a 44-41 advantage by halftime.
Although the Hunters were able to keep things fairly close in the second half, they were never able to reclaim the lead.
The Dinos gave up only seven turnovers.
Guard Lee Hsueh-lin had 22 points along with All-Star center Tseng Wen-ding's 17 to round out the top scorers for the Dinos, while Lee Chi-yi led the Hunters with 31 points and 10 rebounds.
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