The seventh Hualien Probation Cup Basketball Tournament starts in Hualien this afternoon with the Taiwan Mobile Leopards taking on the Singapore Slingers at 2pm.
The annual basketball tournament, that draws hoop fans from all over the country to the “back garden” of Taiwan, features six of the seven squads from the SBL plus a college all-star crew.
Teams from four other countries complete the field for the five-day competition.
Representing Taiwan’s SBL are Taiwan Beer, the Yulon Dinos, the Dacin Tigers, the dmedia Numen and Pure Youth, with Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix of Japan’s Basketball Japan League (BJ), the Singapore Slingers, last year’s second-place finisher Kyung Hee University of South Korea and the Cebu Niños of the Philippines’ Liga Pilipinas completing the field.
The teams will be divided into three groups with the Dinos, the Leopards, the Numen and the Slingers in Group A, Taiwan Beer, the Tigers, Pure Youth, and the Niños in Group B, and a three-team Group C consisting of Kyung Hee University, Phoenix, and the Taiwan Collage All-Stars.
The preliminaries take place today through Friday before the top eight finishers advance into Saturday and Sunday’s final rounds.
Standing in the way of a repeat win by defending champions the Tigers are crowd favorites Taiwan Beer and Kyung Hee University while the Dinos will hope for better luck after a disappointing loss to the beer crew in the SBL Finals back in May.
Phoenix and the Slingers will also be looking to make an impact with the help of some hired guns.
Phoenix’s interior defense will be anchored by 236cm Chinese super center Sun Ming-ming while the Slingers will field 221cm 24-year-old Australian Sam Harris who signed with the Singapore side this season after a successful career at the Old Dominion University in the US.
In his senior season, he averaged 2.6 points, 2.1 rebounds and over one block.
The pressure was already on Real Madrid coach Xabi Alonso before their 2-1 defeat to Manchester City on Wednesday in the UEFA Champions League raised further questions about his future. Arsenal remain perfect in this season’s competition and three points clear at the top of the standings after a 3-0 win against Club Brugge, while defending champions Paris Saint-Germain were held 0-0 at Athletic Bilbao. The clash between Madrid and City was the standout game of the round amid reports this week that Alonso had lost control of the locker room. Speculation over his position is likely to intensify after the latest
By the time Cameron Menzies finally left the arena on Monday, the blood gushing from the gash on his right hand had trickled down his wrist, part of his forearm and — somehow — up to his face. Smeared in crimson and regret, and already mouthing sheepish apologies to the crowd, he disappeared down the steps, pursued by a stern-looking Matt Porter, the chief executive of Professional Darts Corp (PDC). The physical scars from Menzies’ encounter with the Alexandra Palace drinks table after his 3-2 defeat against Charlie Manby at the Darts World Championship would be gone within a few weeks.
Manchester United on Monday blew the lead three times to miss out on moving up to fifth in the Premier League as AFC Bournemouth would not be beaten in a thrilling 4-4 draw at Old Trafford. United have lost just once in their past 10 games, but Ruben Amorim would be frustrated as more points at home were frittered away despite arguably the best attacking display of his reign in charge. Amad Diallo and Casemiro gave the hosts a halftime lead either side of Antoine Semenyo’s equalizer. Two Bournemouth goals from Evanilson and Marcus Tavernier in seven minutes at the start of the
‘HIGH STANDARD’: The Thunder are on track for a Finals-Cup double after they scored 22 three-pointers in equaling the best 25-game start to a season in NBA history The Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday bagged a 16th straight victory, thrashing the Phoenix Suns 138-89 to romp into an NBA Cup semi-final clash with the San Antonio Spurs, who stunned the Los Angeles Lakers 132-119. NBA Most Valuable Player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 28 points to lead the reigning NBA champions Thunder, who improved to 24-1 to equal the best 25-game start to a season in league history. They dominated from start to finish to book their place in the final four of the in-season tournament in Las Vegas, where they are tomorrow to take on the Spurs. The New York Knicks and
RSS