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SBL: Underdogs make it a day of upsets in SBL

The underdogs had their day in the Super Basketball League on Sunday with the last-placed Bank of Taiwan pulling off the upset of the year by trouncing the top-ranked Yulon Dinos 102-90, the dmedia Numen humbling the previously red-hot Taiwan Beer 82-62 and Pure Youth Construction sinking the Taiwan Mobile Leopards 85-77.

Fresh off a big win over the Leopards on Saturday, the bankers continued their success thanks to guard Chang Bo-sheng's stellar shooting, shocking the lackluster league-leaders.

It was Chang's 38-point scoring spree the night before that helped the bankers score an upset win over the Leopards. And it only seemed natural that the second-year guard would play the hero once more with a team-high 21 points to accomplish mission impossible.

Also bringing their "A" game for the bankers were forwards Lin Tsong-ching and Hsu Chih-chiang, whose clutch baskets down the stretch sparked what turned out to be a 10-1 run in the fourth quarter. That broke a 72-all tie to put the bankers ahead for good.

The Dinos managed to come within five of the bankers with a slew of threes in the closing minutes and ultimately went with a decision to intentionally foul the bankers to freeze the clock, but it did not pay off. The bankers calmly sank nearly all of their free throws in the final two minutes, denying the Dinos any chance of a comeback.

The bankers tore up the record books by recording the most free throw attempts and most successful free throws in a single game at 55 and 41 respectively.

Numen 82, Taiwan Beer 62

Outstanding three-point shooting by the dmedia Numen propelled them to an 82-62 blowout win over the previously unstoppable Taiwan Beer, denying the second-placed beer crew a chance to make up ground on the Dinos.

A win by Taiwan Beer would have cut the Dinos' lead to just one game. Instead, the Numen played the role of spoilers by converting 12 of 27 threes to end Taiwan Beer's four-game winning streak.

The win for the Numen was especially sweet given the fact that they were playing without injured top scorer Ouyang Jing-hen. Lin Guan-luen and Wu Rei-jin made up for his absence, combining for 24 points against their former club.

"We wanted to have a good game against them [Taiwan Beer] to make them miss us more," Lin said after the game.

Pure Youth 85, Leopards 77

Pure Youth Construction ended a difficult week by winning their third game in as many days by an 85-77 margin against the Taiwan Mobile Leopards.

James Mao and Jien Jia-hong each racked up 23 points and Tso Tsong-kai contributed 21 to put three Pure Youth players over the 20-point plateau for the first time this season.
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