Regular season play in the Super Basketball League ended on Sunday afternoon with Taiwan Beer edging past Pure Youth Construction in a 93-91 thriller and Bank of Taiwan downing the Taiwan Mobile Leopards by a 92-83 scoreline at the Taipei County Sports Complex.
Three late-game free throws by Luo "the Natural" Hsin-liang was the difference in the game for Taiwan Beer, as the veteran shooting guard celebrated his retirement after more than 15 years of dazzling play on the court by nailing three of four in the closing seconds to guide the defending SBL champions to victory.
The regular season finale for both squads was a seesaw battle from the off as they played to a 21-21 draw after the first quarter before the builders skidded ahead by three to end the first half leading 45-42.
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
A 8-2 run by the Beer Crew would briefly give them a 59-56 lead midway through the third, only to spark a 5-0 counterattack by the Builders, who reclaimed a 61-59 lead by the end of the quarter.
Taiwan Beer would go up by as many 11 early in the fourth with three-pointer's from sharpshooter Ho Sho-cheng in an 84-73 game. But the Builders chipped away at the deficit and eventually pulled to within a point to set the scene for Luo's last-minute scoring heroics.
Also playing in his final regular season contest in a Taiwan Beer uniform was Luo's longtime backcourt mate Chou Jung-san who will retire after this season and coach on a fulltime basis in the SBL. The highly heralded backcourt icons for the Taiwan national team over a good part of the past decade will have their squad numbers retired.
Both teams will have a week to prepare for the upcoming playoffs, with Taiwan Beer taking on dmedia Numen in a matchup between the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds, while the Builders ready themselves for a meeting with the top-ranked Yulon Dinos in a best-of-five series scheduled to start on April 1.
Bank of Taiwan 92, Leopards 83
Bank of Taiwan ended their season on a high note by topping the Taiwan Mobile Leopards 92-83 earlier on Sunday to snap a two-game losing streak.
The Bankers capitalized on a brilliant second quarter that saw them outscore the Leopards 24-14, turning a one-point deficit at the end of the first quarter into a nine-point 41-32 lead by the halftime interval.
They increased their lead to as many as 19 following a 19-9 run during the third quarter, before letting up when the game was in the bag.
Heading the Bankers' attack were guard Lin Chih-long who scored 24 points and forward Lin "Killer Bee" Chuin-fong, adding a further 20 points.
As for the hapless Taiwan Mobile Leopards, a season that was once filled with promise, given their third-place finish the previous season, turned into a disappointing flop.
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