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SBL: Taiwan Beer inflict sobering defeat on Dacin Tigers

Taiwan Beer's Wu Tai-hao, center, steals the ball from the Dacin Tigers defense during their SBL exhibition game in Hsinchu on Friday. PHOTO: LIU HSIN-DE, TAIPEI TIMES

Exhibition games kicked off the Super Basketball League (SBL) season on Friday evening with Taiwan Beer downing the Dacin Tigers 106-83 in front of a 4,000-plus sellout Hsinchu crowd.

The rematch of last season's championship finals saw the defending champs holding nothing back against the Tigers despite it being a preseason game, by racking up 32 first-quarter points en route to the big win.

Even though the Tigers finally showed some signs of life by reducing a 41-58 halftime deficit down to as little as nine points (53-62) after a quick 12-4 run early in the second half, they proved no match for the beer crew as top scorer Lin "the Beast" Chih-jeh quickly came to the rescue with a rally-killing three-pointer to maintain a double-digit cushion the rest of the way.

Six different Taiwan Beer players ended up scoring ten or more points in the game, led by the Beast and swingman Ho Sho-cheng, both with 15 points.

Newcomers Yang Jing-min (Bank of Taiwan) and Wu Dai-hao (dmedia, formerly the ETTV Antelopes) also demonstrated their worth by netting 12 and 11 points respectively to take the scoring burden off the Beast.

As for the hapless Tigers, their new campaign did not start off as well as they would have liked under the direction of new head coach Chiou Da-tsung, who saw his troops committing numerous unforced turnovers that led to easy baskets for Taiwan Beer.

Lin Yi-hui's game-high 22 points was the lone highlight for the Tigers as they looked to fine tune their game before the regular season begins in approximately a week.

Bank of Taiwan 72, Pure Youth 75

Ten unanswered points by Pure Youth (formerly the Azio Eagles) in the final three minutes of the contest helped rally them from eight down to top Bank of Taiwan by a 75-72 margin in the earlier game in Hsinchu on Friday.

The seesaw battle that featured more than five lead changes between the two squads had the Builders (Pure Youth's mother company being Pure Youth Construction) leading the Bankers 20-14 after the initial quarter before an evenly fought second quarter increased their lead by one point.

Then came a 24-point third quarter by Bank of Taiwan that included five long-range three-pointers to give the Bankers a slight 55-52 lead heading into the final quarter.

The Bankers actually led by eight points with three minutes remaining before a scoring drought allowed Pure Youth back in.
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