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.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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