Five takeaways from Day 1 of FIBA U18 Asian Championship

NONTHABURI (FIBA U18 Asian Championship 2018) - The top-seeded teams flexed their muscles in the first day of the FIBA U18 Asian Championship, leading to a lot of big wins and also gave fans a picture of how their favorite teams are expecting to play throughout the next few days.

Here are five takeaways from Day 1 of the FIBA U18 Asian Championship 2018:

[orderedList] Korea’s crisp passing [/orderedList]

Korea has always been known for their quick style of play as a result of moving the ball around efficiently and quickly. They led the tournament in assists back in 2016 with 17.9 per game and could be on pace to do the same in 2018.

The Koreans recorded 27 assists in their dominating 130-66 win over Syria. Korea already has a fair share of highly-talented players, but what makes them contenders is their nature of sharing the ball which was confirmed in this game.

India’s strengths & struggles remain [/orderedList]

The towering height and length of India has always been their patented advantages. Princepal Singh, Harshwardan Tomar, Seijin Mathew, and Pratyanshu Tomar guarantees that they still have that same advantage coming into this tournament. However, they still have trouble controlling the ball compared to other nations with similar tournament expectations. India has the potential to be really good, but it’s difficult to reach that potential giving up 31 turnovers as they did in their heartbreaking loss to Chinese-Taipei. 



Never count out Chinese-Taipei [/orderedList]

They barely shot over 20% throughout the entire first half. They were down by 13 in the fourth quarter and big man Jonah Morrison had already logged his 4^th personal foul in the third quarter. After losing the lead to India before the end of the first half, it was okay if you thought that Chinese-Taipei were out of this one.



Yet they weren’t. They clawed back into the game, knocked down shot after shot, forced turnover after turnover. Five minutes later, they claimed the lead and took it for good.

They also almost fell behind again after a three-pointer by Seijin Mathew and a turnover leading to a desperation attempt… but those are flaws that can be worked on later.

The Philippines are for real [/orderedList]

AJ Edu, Dalph Panopio, and Kai Sotto came into this tournament with a lot of reasonable hype. Nonetheless, there were still question marks that needed to be addressed before anyone was able to peg the Philippines as legit contenders. With this being the 5-on-5 National Team debuts for Edu and Panopio, how would they adjust? How would they perform? How would Kai Sotto play against a higher age group? Would there be enough spacing for their twin towers to execute?



In their win over Lebanon, those questions were answered up to a level which should give confidence to the Filipino fans that their team are in for a deep run. Sotto and Edu had a terrifying defensive presence as expected and gobbled up rebounds left and right. Panopio orchestrated the offense with ease.

At least after what we’ve seen for one game, the Philippines look like the real deal.

China shifting gears [/orderedList]

It’s hard to take much from China’s 91-point blowout over UAE, but it was also interesting to see how eager they were to press the pace. China had 45 fastbreak points out of their total 118 and even in their half-court set, they seemed to be pushing the ball a bit quicker than usual to where they wanted.



The big men on this team, especially Wang Quanze, seem a little lighter on their feet and quick to prance up the court. When they slacked behind, you could see an animated Coach Zhang Jingsong yelling at his player to get up the floor faster.

Team China can be an even scarier team with the size that they already have, if they manage to naturally push their tempo. 

FIBA