January’s Player of the Month went to a deserving Chou Yi-hsiang of the Dacin Tigers, who narrowly edged December’s Player of the Month winner Lu “Male Model” Cheng-ju of the Yulon Luxgens to garner the coveted monthly honor.
The emerging Cats superstar, who finished at the bottom of the league last season and started this season on the wrong foot by dropping four of the Cats’ first five, has replaced Tien Lei as the new team leader after Tien left Taiwan to play in China’s Chinese Basketball Association last year.
“[Winning the Player of the Month honor] really means a lot to me, especially with the number of great players in the league that I am competing with,” a very pleased Chou said upon learning the news.
Photo: Lin Tsung-wei, Taipei Times
His 20.4 points and 2.6 assists per game last month do not even begin to justify his contribution to the Tigers, who went 6-2.
“I guess the tip-in at the buzzer against Taiwan Beer and the big three-pointer against Kinmen Kaoliang really did it for me,” Chou said as he recalled his two big plays from last month that helped the Tigers win back-to-back nail-biters against worthy opponents.
When asked by the media what his next big goal was, the second-year man, who spent four seasons at Salt Lake Community College in Utah, explained his wish to win the league’s Most Valuable Player distinction, as well as a second league title for the Tigers.
Chou and the rest of the Tigers pack have been given a 10-day break from skipper Chiou Da-tsung, who rewarded his troops for the quick turnaround that saw them transformed from a league-worst 1-4 record to their current 12-8 mark, which is good enough for No. 3 in the standings.
“This is quite an improvement from the three-day break we got last year, and I hope we will continue our success all the way to the end of the season,” Chou said in an interview earlier in the week.
Play is scheduled to resume on Feb. 18 following a three-week stoppage to celebrate the Lunar New Year holiday, with the Yulon Luxgens taking on the Fubon Braves at the Banciao Gymnasium in New Taipei City.
TIGHT GAME: The Detroit Pistons, the NBA’s second-best team, barely outlasted the Washington Wizards, who fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss Cade Cunningham’s triple double, Daniss Jenkins’ three-pointer at the buzzer and Javonte Green’s overtime dunk lifted Detroit past Washington 137-135 on Monday, stretching the Pistons’ win streak to seven games. In an unexpected thriller, the NBA’s second-best team barely outlasted a Wizards club that fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss. “We knew how big this game was for us,” Jenkins said. “We wasn’t going to let nothing stop us from getting this W.” Cunningham made 14-of-45 shots and 16-of-18 free throws for a career-high 46 points, and added 12 rebounds, 11 assists, five steals and two
LIKE FINE WINE: Thirty-eight-year-old Djokovic won his 101st title of his career in Athens, becoming the oldest tournament winner since Ken Roswell, 44, in 1977 Elena Rybakina on Saturday clinched her biggest title since Wimbledon in 2022, defeating world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 7-6 (7/0) at the WTA Finals in Riyadh. The world No. 6 put on yet another serving masterclass and was at her returning best as she became the first Kazakh and the first player representing an Asian country to lift the WTA Finals singles trophy. Having gone 3-0 in round-robin play, Rybakina earned a record US$5.235 million and would finish the year ranked No. 5 in the world. “It’s been an incredible week, I honestly didn’t expect any result, and to go so far,
EMPTY STANDS: Maccabi fans were banned from attending by police, who cited violence and hate crimes when the team played Ajax in Amsterdam last season Aston Villa beat Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv 2-0 on Thursday in a Europa League game played amid heightened security measures, with more than 700 police officers deployed to deal with possible protests. Morgan Rogers put through Ian Maatsen in first-half stoppage time for the defender to score from a tight angle and Villa doubled the lead on the hour with Donyell Malen hitting the bottom corner from the penalty spot. It was Villa’s third win from games in the competition. The game at Villa Park had become the center of a political debate after Maccabi fans were banned from attending, as
An amateur soccer league organized by farmers, students and factory workers in rural China has unexpectedly drawn millions of fans and inspired big cities to form their own, raising hopes China can grow talent from the ground up and finally become a global force. The nation of 1.4 billion people has about 200 million soccer fans, more than any other country, but it has failed to build world-class teams, partly due to a top-down approach where clubs pick players from a very small pool of prescreened candidates. The professional game is marred by a history of fixed matches, corruption, and dismal performances,
RSS