As Taiwan’s semiprofessional Women’s Super Basketball League (WSBL) begins a new season this month, it will for the first time allow overseas players of ethnic Chinese heritage to compete, the CTBA, the national basketball association, said on Wednesday.
The season opener at the Taipei Gymnasium on Jan. 17 is to pit Taiwan Power against Chunghwa Telecom at 6pm, followed by Taiyuan Textile against Cathay Life, who are hungry for another title after securing their 12th consecutive championship last season.
The four-team WSBL has a regular season of 36 games — played in Taipei and New Taipei City — capped by a playoff schedule that is to begin on May 3.
An amendment to the league’s regulations has allowed teams to recruit players of ethnic Chinese and Taiwanese heritage for this season, the CTBA said.
SOPHIA SONG
Taiyuan Textile have signed Sophia Song — a standout at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) — as the first overseas player of ethnic Chinese heritage to play in the league, it said.
The WSBL hopes that more ethnic-Chinese players will join the league to boost the level of play, it added.
The 23-year-old Song — a 180cm-tall native of Monterey Park, California — averaged 5.6 points and 2.3 rebounds per game as a senior at UC Davis, a NCAA Division I school, while making 31 of 42 shots from beyond the arc.
In 2020, Song graduated from UC Davis with a degree in psychology. She later joined the Manchester Metropolitan Mystics in the Women’s British Basketball League (WBBL), the UK’s top women’s league.
Last season, Song averaged 9.3 points and five rebounds per game in the WBBL Championship.
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