The Dacin Tigers committed the cardinal sin of all sports. They underestimated their opponents in Saturday's contest at the Taipei Physical Education College Gymnasium against the ETTV Antelopes, resulting in an embarrassing 98-85 loss for the second-place cats.
Even though both clubs did not have much to play for in terms of their respective postseason statuses, with the Tigers having already secured a second-seed berth in the playoffs and the Antelopes being eliminated over a month ago, it was nonetheless a good chance work off some rust after a three-week break.
The Antelopes held a potent Tigers offense scoreless in the first two minutes before ending the first quarter leading 23-12.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SBL
After the Tigers finally got back on track with a decent second quarter that cut the Antelopes lead to seven (35-28) by the end of the first half, they never seemed comfortable playing in their first game since March 12.
The offense took over the game for both teams in the second half, with the Tigers ringing up 31 third-quarter points to come within one of the Antelopes (51-50).
But sharp shooter Yang Yu-ming of the Antelopes would answer every Tiger's run with one amazing shot after another in a game where the Antelopes never trailed.
His game-high 30 points marked the fourth time this season that the Antelopes' lead scorer had scored at least 30 in a contest.
Tien Lei of the Tigers had his 18th double-double of the season with 28 points and 12 rebounds.
Dinos 106, YMY 83
The defending champions made it look easy against YMY in a 106-83 decision that sent YMY to its 25th straight defeat of the season.
Power forward Lu Cheng-rue showed no mercy, scoring a team-high 20 points to lead a balanced Dinos attack with five players in double-digit scoring.
Having already earned a top-seed berth in the postseason with a 23-6 regular season record, the Dinos played all 12 men during the game. But it did not stop them from scoring at least 25 points in each quarter for their league-best sixth game with 100 points or more.
YMY looked to team leader Luo "The Natural" Hsin-liang for the bulk of their scoring early and then turned to big men Jien Jia-hong and Hsieh Chih-wei with an inside game to finish off the contest.
Luo scored his usual team-high of 22 points, followed by Jien's 16 and Hsieh's 14.
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