Last week’s SBL Player of the Week went to a deserving Earl Barron, who won the nods from the members of the Basketball Writers’ Association with a monstrous weekend of play.
The former University of Memphis standout who played eight seasons in the National Basketball Association prior to signing with the Braves at the start of this season showed the rest of the league why he is clearly the regular-season scoring champion by netting a season-high 46 points and taking in 20 rebounds against the third-ranked Dacin Tigers on Thursday last week before downing 35 and recovering 17 boards against the fourth-ranked Yulon Luxgens on Sunday to keep his team in contention in fifth spot.
“I am really grateful to my teammates for feeding me the ball and setting good picks to free me up for the shots,” Barron said earlier in the week upon learning of his selection for the award for the second time of the season.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
His league-leading 28.1 points and 15.8 rebounds per game puts the Fubon big man in contention for the Player of the Year award.
“All the individual awards don’t mean much if my team doesn’t win, which is our ultimate goal,” Barron added when asked about his chances to be considered for Player of the Year.
Barron “has really been a problem for the opposing team with so many weapons in his arsenal; he has both an inside game and an outside game that makes him so dangerous to guard against,” basketball commentator Lee Yi-sheng said.
The Braves have a chance to rack up two more wins this weekend with tonight’s contest against Kinmen Kaoliang followed by tomorrow afternoon’s showdown against Bank of Taiwan.
Fubon might be the clear favorites in tonight’s contest against the last-placed Distillers, but this could be the game that Kinmen Kaoliang break out as they look to nip a 13-game slide after dropping a game they should have won against Taiwan Beer in overtime on Saturday last week.
As for tomorrow’s battle versus the Bankers, the Braves must play four quarters of fundamentally sound basketball, as the streaky Bankers have demonstrated an uncanny tendency to rally to take opponents by surprise.
In tonight’s late game, top-ranked Pure Youth Construction will look to bounce back from a tough loss against Taiwan Beer on Sunday with an improved showing against the Bankers at the Banciao Gymnasium in New Taipei City.
If the Builders grab an early lead, coach Ben Metcalf might go to his bench early to give his starters some rest and the reserves more floor time ahead of the post-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
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