Bring back Jung for one final bow!

KUALA LUMPUR (Mageshwaran’s AsiaScope) - Very few players have an enormous individual influence in guiding their team’s fortunes in basketball, essentially a team sport. Fewer are those whose absence from a roster has a detrimental effect on the team from reaching its set goals, which otherwise seem within the grasp.

There are not many occasions in more than a decade-and-half now that Jung Sunmin hasn’t been a part of the Korean women’s national team. And every time she has donned the famous blue-and-white jersey, her presence has had a talismanic influence on the morale of the team, her contributions prolific in all departments of the game.

More significantly, when the 1.85m forward/centre has been out of the team – incidentally only on two occasions in this period – the Korean team has failed to meet its target.

As Korea prepare for the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) for Women in Turkey, one’s thoughts are firmly on how Jung Sunmin can contribute to the team’s progress, or for that matter if the team can cope with her absence, which it has failed to do in the past.

Jung Sunmin made her debut for the Korean team as a strapping youngster barely out of her teens in the first half of the 1990s and went on to become the first Korean to play in the hallowed WNBA. We’ll come to her contributory part later.

First, let’s look at what happened to Korea when Jung Sunmin was absent from the roster in the recent past.

In 2006, she was out of the national team for the first time in more than a decade when Korea finished out of the medals for the first time in history at the Doha Asian Games.

More recently, at last summer's 24th FIBA Asia Championship for Women, one’s thoughts were firmly on whether she would have made the difference between silver – which Korea won – and gold, which would have given them an automatic entry to the 2012 London Olympics.

I am not very sure if China could have managed to clinch the Gold Medal Game if Korea had had Jung Sunmin to lead their defense with composure and character. Just as I am not sure if she would have conceded the space to Miao Lijie to fire her three-pointer, nor if she would have committed the foul that took Nan Chen to the free-throw line, and China to 2012 London Olympics.

I said it then on the day of the Final, and say it again - those were the only two moments of superiority China had in that crucial game. Could it have been different if Jung Sunmin was present? A question that’ll remain unanswered forever.

Korea could do well to avoid more unanswered questions emerging out of Turkey by simply including Jung Sunmin.

There will not be many who can question such a call for Korea’s most capped player. For the simple reason that she has been scorching the WKBL stats defying her aging limbs.

When the WKBL's regular season came to an end last week, Jung Sunmin had averaged 16.9 points, 5.9 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game while leading the KB Stars to the play-offs. Stats which are as good as when she donned the national team colors.

Of course, Jung Sunmin has expressed her intentions to stay away from the national team.

“Keeping the future of the Korean team in mind, I don’t want to stop a youngster’s career,” the 37-year-old had said while announcing her 'retirement' last year.

But I am sure contributing towards the team qualifying for the Olympics is one sure way of showing the correct path to the future for Korean basketball. It’s worth recalling Jung Sunmin for one final bow!

So long…

S Mageshwaran

FIBA Asia

FIBA’s columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA.

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