Erupting for 31 points in a swarming third quarter, Taiwan broke an otherwise close first half wide open to take a 63-41 lead and held on to defeat Jordan 91-61 at the Sinjhuang Sports Complex in New Taipei City last night to improve to 3-1 in this year’s William Jones Cup International Basketball Tournament.
Four three-pointers by Lu Cheng-rue in a 16-point third led the way for the Islanders as they took the Jordanians to school in perimeter shooting by draining eleven of 17 from the field to put the game away long before the final buzzer sounded.
The win not only kept Taiwan in the title hunt as they trail the top two teams (Iran and South Korea) by a game in the standings, but also provided some much-needed confidence following their lopsided loss to Lebanon the night before.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
With today being an off day and a relatively easy game scheduled against Team Guan Hua for tomorrow, Taiwan should be as prepared as they can be for Friday night’s battle versus Egypt, before back-to-back tough matches against Iran and South Korea on the final two days to close out the tournament.
Three three-pointers by the Jordanians kept the game close in the opening quarter against the hosts, who looked to a well-rested Lin “the Beast” Chih-jeh’s seven quick points and a buzzer-beating slam by newly naturalized center Quincy Davis to claim a 19-16 lead after 10 minutes of play.
Taiwan would tack on 13 more points compared with Jordan’s 10 in a sloppy second quarter that saw the two teams committed nine combined turnovers to give the home hosts a 31-26 cushion at the half, setting the stage for what turned out to be an all-Taiwan second half in which they outscored Jordan 59-35.
Four players scored in double-digits for Taiwan and all but two players made it to the scoreboard, while three of Jordan’s starting five netted ten or more, headed by Jimmy Baxter’s 16 points.
US 101, TAIWAN GUAN HUA 69
Trouble continued for Team Guan Hua of Taiwan, who were overwhelmed by the US in a 101-69 decision in Sinjhuang yesterday afternoon to fall to 1-3.
Other than a 20-point third quarter after the US had already taken a 53-32 lead at the half, the Taiwanese youngsters were outplayed by several former NBA veterans in every facet of the game.
IRAN 90, EGYPT 54
Iran lit up the scoreboard against Egypt in the early game in Sinjhuang yesterday with a whopping 90-54 win to remain unbeaten at 3-0.
The Persian force built a comfortable 19-8 margin after the opening quarter and held the Egyptians to nine points in the second quarter to take a 44-17 lead at the half en route to a blowout win.
Other Scores:
‧ South Korea 61, Lebanon 52
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